Review: The Descendants

By Sean Knight

3 out of 4 Stars ***

            It’s been seven years since the 2004 release of Alexander Payne’s highly acclaimed film, Sideways.  Many thought, at the time, that it was deserving of the Academy Award for Best Picture.  I wasn’t as taken with the film as many were, but in retrospect it was certainly a more deserving picture than the winner, Million Dollar Baby.  Many in the industry are touting Payne’s latest, The Descendants, as a serious awards contender, with some even claiming it as a frontrunner for Best Picture.  And again I find myself in the position of the minority on the film.  The Descendants has some wonderful insights into the human condition and often time tense character driven scenes play out quite differently than how you would imagine. That has always been Payne’s gift as a director.  But the film has no narrative pull and its humor often comes at the price of making people look like caricatures instead well-rounded human beings.

            George Clooney plays Matt King whose wife is in a coma due to a boating accident and is now in charge of raising his two daughters.  He is also the trustee of his family’s ancestral Hawaiian land, which is up for sale.  King learns from his oldest daughter, Alexandra (played by Shailene Woodley), that his wife was having an affair with a local real estate agent at the time of her accident.  This sends King’s life into a downward spiral as her tries to deal with his wife’s inevitable passing, while still brokering the deal on his family’s land sale.  Clooney is wonderful in the role of Matt King.  He uses his movie star charisma to draw the audience in and make this distant family man relatable.  But he also fully inhabits the character and you begin to see a normal man dealing with an extraordinary set of circumstances.  He is particularly effective in every scene with Woodley as they have a believable father and daughter dynamic.  Woodley damn near steals the film out from Clooney on more than one occasion as you begin to truly sympathize with this troubled teen.  Robert Forster provides a brief, but powerful performance as Matt’s father in law and Judy Greer has a beautiful fragility about her as the wife of the cheating real estate agent.  Mathew Lillard does pop up briefly as the real estate agent and his scene is one of the more surprising moments of the film.

            While much of the acting is of the highest caliber it does not have a clear-cut narrative to drive it home.  The Descendants meanders from one scene to the next and often times wallows in its emotions.  This does give the film a few surprises, as you are not sure where it’s going to go, but there is always a sneaking suspicion that it isn’t going to go much of anywhere.  The subplot about the King family land also seems forced and doesn't add any stakes to the overall drama of the picture.  Matt King spends much of the film chasing after his wife’s lover with no real intention other than to meet the bastard.  And then you have the inclusion of Alexandra’s boyfriend Sid who provides much of the comic relief, but does not come off as a real character.  In fact, many of the character’s annoyance with him get reflected into the audience.  He is a distraction to the real heartbreak being felt by King and his family.  It’s as if Payne didn’t trust his audience to stay with him through all the highs and lows of the story, so he put in the obligatory Hollywood comic relief.  It doesn’t do him or the picture any good.

            The setting of the film also becomes a bit of a problem.  King starts off the story by stating that even in Hawaii people have problems and it’s not all sunshine and sand.  Unfortunately, Payne sets many of his scenes in sunshine and sand.  I find it hard to feel bad for a family that is about to make millions of dollars off of a land deal and have the ability to fly from tropical island to tropical island in order to escape, or in this case chase after, their problems.  Perhaps it’s just the mindset of the country right now, but a story about a man with a lot of money, who lives in Hawaii, who’s wife is cheating on him is just not all that compelling or relevant.  Trouble in paradise is bullshit.

            I’m sure that The Descendants will get a lot of awards love towards the end of the year and it will not be wholly unwarranted.  The acting is far superior to the material at hand and Payne’s insights into the human condition remain fresh.  But The Descendants lacks the cynicism and wit that made Sideways so spectacular.  It also fails to find humor in the outlandish in quite the same way that Payne’s About Schmidt did.  Still, it would be a shame to write the film off completely due to some exciting performances that are not to be missed.  The Descendants is a lesser Payne effort, but still well intentioned enough to give a mild recommendation if not quite a ringing endorsement.

The Descendants
Directed by Alexander Payne
Release Date: November 18, 2011
Runtime: 115 Mins

Review: The Ides of March

The Ides of March Review

By Sean Knight

Three out of Four Stars

Director George Clooney’s liberal politics are well known to anyone who has followed his career.  He is an outspoken advocate on many progressive issues and is not afraid to speak his mind about the worlds current political climate.  His 2005 feature Goodnight and Good Luck about CBS Reporter Edward R. Murrow’s fight against Joseph McCarthy wore its liberal heart on it’s sleeve and was a reminder that fear mongering was not an option in today’s politics.  Clooney’s latest feature, The Ides of March, also deals with liberal ideals and politics except it is a lot more cynical than his previous pictures.  In many ways it shows that liberals can be just as corrupt as any republican and that in politics all is fair game.  The Ides of March follows the story of a young idealist (played by Ryan Gosling) working on a presidential campaign for a democrat (played by director George Clooney) in the heat of the Ohio primary.  The film shows Gosling’s eventual disillusionment with the political system and ideals he so loves and his eventual folding into the world of dirty politics.  The film and story are slickly made and acted, but The Ides of March doesn’t have much to say that most of us who follow politics don’t already know.  Politics is a dirty business no matter what side of the fence you are on.

            Clooney appears to be basing his presidential candidate as an ideal mash-up of President Obama and former President Clinton.  He puts a lot of words in the character’s mouth that any liberal would love to hear.  He makes the audience as well as the characters on screen fall in love with him.  But then Clooney and the script take a nosedive that is so predictable and something that we have seen so many times in real politics and in political films that it undermines the character he has been trying to build.  This “twist” sets in motion the events for the rest of the film and the disillusionment of the Gosling character.  I realize the point that Clooney is trying to make here – even the best of men and candidates make big mistakes and nothing is, as it seems.  Okay, but what does that point serve a liberal audience who has already lived through the Clinton impeachment and the eights years of home-style terror under George Bush?  The twist does play itself out well as far as plotting and character development go, but the whole time I felt like Clooney was elevating extremely predictable material.  It is a testament to his gift as a director that he was able to do this, but a major flaw with the film all the same.

            Gosling is in fine form as the young idealist and his transformation is believable and as real as the confines of the script will allow him to be.  Clooney himself is quite good as the presidential candidate in question and provides himself with plenty of juicy scenes that play up to many of the actors’ strengths.  But the two actors who steal the film out from under them are Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti as two campaign advisors who have been playing this game a long time.  Hoffman and Giamatti can play this kind of role in their sleep, but it’s precisely because of that quality that their characters pop from the screen.  Giamatti in particular gets a great scene late in the picture that spells out exactly how the game of politics is played in today’s America.  The scene could very well be the thesis of the entire picture.

            The Ides of March boasts great production values and a killer score from composer Alaxandre Desplat.  From top to bottom The Ides of March is an impeccably made film.  It’s something that Clooney should be proud of.  But the fact remains that we have heard this story before and the film doesn’t provide any new insights into the political system.  Well not for anyone who has been paying attention the past few years anyway.

The Ides of March

Directed by George Clooney

Release Date: October 7^th, 2011

Run Time: 101 Minutes