The Descendants

Since his feature-film debut in 1996, writer-director Alexander Payne has established himself as a fine maker of comedy-dramas, or dramedies. Over a fifteen-year career, Payne has previously given us four wonderful comedy-dramas in the form of “Citizen Ruth,” “Election,” “About Schmidt” and “Sideways,” each of which presented a balancing act for Payne to handle, and handle them he most certainly did. He continues this trend with “The Descendants,” his first film in seven years and fifth film overall; while his latest is most definitely another comedy-drama for Payne, it is a little lighter on the comedy side than his previous efforts.

“The Descendants” has as its leading man the dashingly handsome and roguishly charming Mr George Clooney. The film’s comedy-drama stylings play very naturally to Clooney’s many talents; Clooney has displayed his comedy chops in the Coen Brothers’ “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “Burn After Reading,” and also his dramatic chops in Stephen Gaghan’s “Syriana” and Tony Gilroy’s “Michael Clayton.” He also combined the two to much effect in Jason Reitman’s comedy-drama “Up in the Air” in 2009.

Here, Clooney plays Matt King, a lawyer who resides in Honolulu in Hawaii. Matt is a descendant of one of Hawaii's first white land-owning families. As such, he is the sole trustee of a family trust that currently controls 25,000 acres of land on the island of Kauai. However, this trust is going to expire in seven years; in reaction, the King family decide to sell the land to Kauai native Don Hollitzer, who plans to develop the land; Matt has agreed to let this happen, though many locals disagree.

As this deal approaches finalisation, Matt’s recently distant wife, Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie), ends up in a boating accident, which leaves her in a coma; doctors are unsure if she will ever wake from this. Matt is consequently left on his own to care for his two daughters, inappropriate 10-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller) and foul-mouthed 17-year-old Alexandra (Shailene Woodley, “The Secret Life of the American Teenager”). Matt is, as he calls himself, a “back-up parent,” and so finds being a father a tough responsibility.

To further complicate matters, when Alexandra returns home from boarding school, she reveals to her father that she saw her mother with another man some time ago. Matt then discovers that his wife was having an affair with a real estate agent called Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard, “Scooby-Doo”) up until the boating incident. He then becomes determined to meet Mr Speer face-to-face, although what he will say or do to him he is unsure of.

Like Payne’s previous three films, “The Descendants” originates from a novel, in this case the novel of the same name by Kaui Hart Hemmings, which I myself am unfamiliar with. Perhaps this is why, again like Payne’s previous three films, “The Descendants” is so rich in character; in a novel, a writer has as much space as they want to fully develop and flesh out a character with written description. In a film, this is naturally more difficult, but Payne somehow always manages to pull this off, especially when his characters have been previously portrayed and developed in a novel; his films, in essence, are played out like live-action novels, armed with a sharp sense of character and a staggering ability to express its characters’ inner complexities.

It’s in the subtleties of the acting and of the script (co-written by Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash) through which this is achieved. Clooney is and always has been an incredibly talented actor, and as such is fully capable of expressing these tiny hints of his character’s thoughts and motivations; I struggle to think of anyone else who could have played this role. The script, a tremendous piece of writing, spells out very little about its characters, of which there are many, yet somehow it expresses very much; it also shows that there is much more to a person than what lies atop the surface.

Take the character of Sid (Nick Krause), Alexandra’s boyfriend, for example. On the surface, Sid is a blithering idiot of a teenage boy; he’s inappropriate, inconsiderate, hopelessly dense and the very definition of a numbskull. There’s little movement going on in this boy’s head, we believe, as does Matt. And yet, in a late-night conversation with Matt, Sid is revealed to have experienced the pain and heartache of losing someone, which Sid talks about with touching sincerity; Matt’s opinion of Sid is seen to change, as we see in his shifting expression.

So, that’s the drama part taken care of, but what about the comedy? Well, “The Descendants” is strong on this side too, although the comedy is much less prominent than its dramatic counterpart. The script has a charmingly wry sense of humour and enjoys playing with its characters; at one point, it puts the limitlessly ignorant Sid in a room with Matt’s Alzheimer’s-suffering mother-in-law (Barbara L. Southern) and hard-ass, permanently stone-faced father-in-law (Robert Forster, “Jackie Brown”), leaving us to wait and see how long it takes for Sid to get punched in the face. A shot of George Clooney frantically running through the neighbourhood in his flippity-flopping flip-flops also raises quite a giggle.

Speaking of flip-flops, I can’t do this review without talking about Hawaii. The 50th American state is a prominent feature of the film, as opposed to just being an atypical setting; it’s as important to the film as Fargo was to “Fargo.” Every character in the film walks about in Hawaiian shirts, shorts and indeed flip-flops, even during business meetings. They all have prominent tans, the blisteringly hot sun always shining in the sky. The soundtrack consists entirely of ukulele tunes, accompanied by the soothing voices of many Hawaiian singers. The setting also works with one of the film’s themes: Hawaii may look like a never-ending paradise for its many inhabitants, but it’s not; in spite of the sun and the sandals, Hawaiians experience the same troubles and worries that us boring norms do.

“The Descendants” is another dramedic hit for Alexander Payne. It is a film that is handled with intelligence and is rich in emotion and humour; it is a beautifully acted and terrifically written look at the effects of loss and betrayal. I believe the film will enjoy much success come Oscar nomination time, and maybe even Oscar-winning time, and also do quite a big favour to the Hawaiian tourist board.

9/10