THE DESCENDANTS

There’s an amusing moment in THE DESCENDANTS where George Clooney runs out his front door, and down a winding road to a neighbour’s house. What’s amusing, is that Clooney is running in a way we don’t often see in movies. He’s not jogging like someone keeping fit, and he’s not fleeing in an action scene. He’s running with a very human desperation and panic – and somehow it plays for laughs. It’s a rare sliver of urgent truth for moviegoers, and it’s a true beacon of the sort of honesty and humour so few movies offer.

THE DESCENDANTS begins by telling us that a Hawaiian resident named Elizabeth King was in a serious boating accident, leaving her in a coma. Her husband Matt King (George Clooney) is left to sit by her bedside and hope, while distracting himself with work and his newfound role as primary caregiver to the couple’s younger daughter Scottie (Amara Miller). What’s distracting him further is a massive land transfer he is working on with his extended family. They have been trusted with 25,000 acres of glorious, untouched land in Kaua’i, and the family has decided to sell a few years before the trust lapses.

Sadly, all of that is about to get a lot more difficult as Matt gets the news that Elizabeth likely will not wake from her coma. Armed with that terrible news, he goes to collect his oldest daughter Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) from boarding school. Alexandra is a bit rebellious, and not all that fussed about coming home, however when Matt tells her the news about her mother, she is grief-stricken, and begins the slow process of helping her dad carry out her mother’s wishes.

Before any of that can happen though, Alexandra reveals a secret to her father. Elizabeth was having an affair, as recently as a few months ago. the affair was the reason Alexandra and Elizabeth had a falling-out, and comes as a complete shock to Matt. Now conflicted with tending to a dying spouse who betrayed him, Matt decides to seek out the truth…knowing that he won’t be able to move forward with what needs to be done, until he can understand what has already happened.

THE DESCENDANTS is the sort of film I wish Hollywood made more often. It brings together a wonderful blend of drama, sorrow, and humour in a way that makes you feel like you of your fill of each. I shouldn’t really be all that surprised, since director Alexander Payne has proved to be a true pro at this sort of film thanks to SIDEWAYS, ABOUT SCHMIDT and ELECTION. It’s premise very easily could have played very mopey, or too screwball, but it finds a way to make everything feel very human – no easy trick with such a capital-M-movie star in the lead role.

On the page, the notion of a dying wife & mother who was unfaithful almost seems like melodrama. However, THE DESCENDANTS is able to make it very human by showing just what sort of natural ripples are created by this stone dropping in the water. In reality, there would be deep, difficult decisions on how to handle this sort of situation – for instance who to tell and how to tell them. I’m a believer that honesty is the best policy, but there’s always a course that has to be navigated, and sometimes holding on to the truth can be just as difficult as revealing it. To this end, Clooney and Woodley are tremendous in the way that they carry the burden of truth. They are both heartbreaking when withholding it, and quite genuine when revealing it.

As Matt King, Clooney especially underlines what it takes to try and keep one’s self together under such strain. He gives us glimpses of the wild amount of stress he’s under between the brutal triple-play of his dying wife, the land transaction, and become a more prominent father. And as is to be expected, they are only glimpses. He wouldn’t spend a week on the couch drowning his sorrows in alcohol, he wouldn’t pull away and weep for what has happened to him. Even if he wanted to, he doesn’t have that luxury with so much responsibility in the matter. Therefore the way Clooney makes the most of those brief moments he gets to surrender to his stress is heartbreaking: Not in what we see, but in how briefly we see it.

Of course, the most immediate reason for Matt’s brevity of grief is in how he needs to step up his fathering skills in a hurry. In many families, there’s a parent that leads and a parent that follows. It often hinges on one parents relationship with their job, which unfortunately can lead to a fractured relationship with their own children. Matt, Alexandra, and Scottie are wonderful to watch in this regard, since they spend much of the movie trying to set things right. Quite often, things don’t go all that well – Matt gets short-tempered and/or the girls get disrespectful. But slowly we are able to see the effort on all sides. It isn’t pretty, and it will obviously still be a process, but it leaves us feeling encouraged by small victories. Matt, Alexandra, and Scottie will likely never be the same – but one hopes they can evolve into something better.

Sometimes as descendants we are tasked with honouring those who have come before us. Our responsibility can be grand, like tending to property or legacy. The responsibility can also be deeply personal, such as keeping both those we never met and those we know and love close in heart as we make our choices. It’s never easy, and can sometimes mean that we’re living according to what someone else wants. But without these responsibilities…without roots…what would we have to keep us anchored. What would epitomize not just the place, but the feeling of home?

Matineescore: ★ ★ ★ 1/2 out of ★ ★ ★ ★

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