The Descendants

February 2, 2012
James Tyas

Film: The Descendants
Director: Alexander Payne
Starring: George Clooney
Runtime: 115 mins
***

George Clooney plays Matt King, a middle-aged lawyer whose life is thrown into crisis when he finds out that his comatose wife was engaged in a long-term affair with an estate agent. While dealing with the fact that he is to become the single father to his two truculent daughters, he attempts to locate the man his wife betrayed him for, for reasons that aren’t quite clear, even to himself. Alexander Payne’s fifth feature impresses in patches: George Clooney is surprisingly convincing in the middle-aged loser role; it goes to show how effective an unstylish haircut and an array of garish Hawaiian shirts can be in making even George Clooney look inadequate. The commonly-held idea of the island of Hawaii as an idyll is also blown apart: Payne shows that day-to-day life in O’ahu is just as mundane as in, say, Luton. Despite being firmly in the tragicomedy territory of Payne’s previous work, dealing with issues of whether one can be angry with a dying woman and the possibility of reconnection with estranged family members, The Descendants lacks emotional pull. The loose ends are tied up too neatly and the central message that redemption can be achieved through tragedy seems rather too obvious. The Descendants is a perfectly enjoyable comedy drama, but one that has had its rough edges smoothed out. It is neither as funny nor as deeply melancholy as Payne’s previous efforts and seems to be a disappointing step into the middle of the road for the director.

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