The Descendants
Movie Review: “The Descendants”
Starring: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Robert Forster, Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard, Nick Krause
Written for the Screen by Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
Directed by Alexander Payne
George Clooney can do no wrong. (Well, he was in “Batman and Robin”, but that was a long, long time ago.) He directed, co-wrote and co-starred in one of last year’s best films “The Ides of March” (my list will be coming out in a few weeks), and now he’s delivered an Oscar-worthy performance in the good, not-great Oscar contender “The Descendants”.
Director Alexander Payne’s adaptation of Kaui Hart Hemmings novel is a beautiful, funny and incredibly well-acted comedy-drama that stars Clooney as Matt King, a real-estate agent who’s enstraged wife falls into a coma after she suffers a serious boating injury. If that wasn’t enough, Matt is being pressure by his cousins to sell 25,000 acres of his family’s land. And if that wasn’t enough, Matt finds out through his eldest daughter (played perfectly by Shailene Woodley) that his wife was cheating on him. Understandably, Matt’s a little upset. So he goes out and searches for his wife’s lover, who’s played nicely by Matthew Lillard. Yes, the guy from Scream who played Shaggy in the two live-action Scooby-Doo movies. That guy.
At 1 hr and 55 minutes, “The Descendants” falls short of greatness because it’s about 15 minutes too long and gets incredibly sentimental towards the end. But the performances are worth the price of admission alone. Clooney does a surprisingly great job playing a normal, down-to-earth guy; Woodley is great here as his sarcastic, rebellious and funny eldest daughter; Robert Forster is strong here as Clooney’s father-in-law, who believes that his daughter was too good for Clooney; and Lillard, who I mentioned earlier, is great in a surprising role for him. Payne could’ve chosen anybody for this role. Lillard knows this and makes the most out of every scene he has.
In short, I hope this film doesn’t win Best Picture. It’s good, but not great.
