What’d I miss here? “The Descendants” is getting critical acclaim right and left, and is collecting awards like James Cameron ala 1997, and as I sat watching the film I could not for the life of me figure out why.
George Clooney (you may have heard of him) plays Matt King, a lawyer who is the inheritor of millions of dollars and almost an entire hawaiian island. Matt at the start of the film has two daughters and a comatose wife. The audience is introduced to Scottie (Amara Miller), Matt’s younger daughter, as a somewhat moody ten year old as he struggles parent her while his wife is in the hospital, then later Alex (Shailene Woodley) his 17 year old daughter. Caution, the following will contain spoilers.
Matt has one hell of a week: while he’s trying to navigate his way through a business deal involving a dozen or so cousins who all have a stake in the families property inheritance, his wife, Liz (Patricia Hastie) ends up in the hospital in a coma. The doctors inform him that she’s getting worse instead of better and due to a signed contract they will not continue to treat her (the ol’ “if I can’t live on my own, let me die” clause). Then, as if things weren’t rough enough already, when Matt fetches Alex from the boarding school they sent her to in order to rehabilitate her from her drug/alcohol problems, she tells him that his beloved, dying wife was having an affair.
Naturally, Matt sets out to find the man his wife was cheating with, under the rouse of telling him that she’s dying. His search leads him to Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard), a married real estate agent who stands to gain a tidy sum from the land deal Matt is the executor of.
In the end, the wife dies (after being yelled at a lot), Matt doesn’t sell the land, the girls come to love their father and Matt gets a better understanding of his daughters.
First of all, it was obvious that this was based on a novel, which is dreadful. It’s fine and dandy to turn books into movies, they’ve been doing it practically since the beginning of film, but there’s something about when you can tell, without knowing, that a movie is based on a book, that is wretched. Also I would like to point out that of the last five movies I’ve seen three of them were based on books. Three. Is anyone writing anything in hollywood anymore? Okay fine, you read the book, thought it would be a great movie. Fantastic. Don’t start the movie with unaccounted for voice over (it’s not like it’s voice over through the credits then we see the people talking, no, it’s just narration), and then not carry it through the entire movie. It just stops, for no reason. Okay, or better yet, let’s give the voice over a rest for awhile. Sit down, write something original, and leave the voice over in the drawer for a couple of years. Then it will be new and refreshing and fun.
In the opening scene, Matt tells us in no uncertain terms that just because he lives in Hawaii doesn’t mean he lives in paradise. Not to beat a dead horse but:
Hawaii
I’m having a hard time relating to living in not Paradise pictured above, while living in:
Detroit
Detroit. In February. Surely he can see where we’d get confused.
Secondly, while George Clooney’s performance was good, the audience expects nothing less. He’s George Clooney, and on a guess his salary for this film was probably well over ten million dollars. So yeah, he should be good. But there were scenes that I thought could have come right off of the high school gymatorium stage, very wooden, exaggerated performances, that had me wondering if I was seeing the same movie that’s winning these awards. With the exception of Shaileen Woodley, who did an extremely good job, and her character was deep, interesting, and well portrayed.
With apologies to Alexander Payne, I didn’t relate to the film at all. Maybe because I am not a man or a father or a millionaire or married or living on Hawaii. Could be, but it seems unlikely. I find it hard to believe that the filmmakers were planning on only millionaire fathers who live on Hawaii relating to this film. Frankly I didn’t care about Matt, or his problems or his wife, I felt no connection to the character and no interest to develop a connection. After spending two hours with him there’s very little I could tell you: he’s married, has two daughters, is a lawyer though I don’t know what sort of law he practices, he runs at least when he’s stalking cheaters, and he’s Hawaiian.
There are other characters, of course. Brian’s wife, Liz’s parents, Alex’s friend Sid, Scottie’s friend Reina, Liz and Matt’s best friends. But none of them are particularly interesting either and most of them contribute to the high school production feeling of the scenes they’re in.
So, while it’s not a terrible movie, and there are some very fantastic moments, very well done scenes, I hardly think it’s the best picture of the year, or George Clooney’s best movie (Or Alexander Payne’s best for that matter).
2.5/5 stars for getting my hopes up and being a major let down.
Reel Mess 