DVD REVIEW: THE DESCENDANTS

As a movie critic walks out of a theater, he has to think hard of how much he enjoyed the movie, but mostly, what the majority of people do reading reviews, think of the bad parts to warn patrons of the cinema.  As I walked out of Alexander Payne's "The Descendants," I realized I couldn't find anything wrong with it.  It really is one of the best films of the year.

We begin by seeing Matt King's (excellently portrayed by a subtle, defeated George Clooney) wife water skiing happily on a motor boat.  The next scene we hear Matt's voice giving us the intro to his life, the work that consumes him, his profane little girl who wants to be anything but, and his other little girl, who really isn't little anymore, a rebellious, headstrong teen named Alex, played with devastating confidence by Shailene Woodley, who will hopefully no longer be solely associated with that stupid teen pregnancy soap opera.  Most importantly, we see King's wife in a coma.  We're filled in by Alex that before the accident, she caught her mother with another man.

Clooney and Woodley

"Descendants" works on so many levels because it's real.  You don't get many movies like that these days.  You get garbage that wants to be real, but dives into cliches so worn out, we dismiss them at first sight.  For instance, Matt screams at his comatose wife for cheating on him, barking at her that it wasn't his fault, he just had his work to do.  He then invites the girls in, and when Alex goes off on her mother in a similar fashion, he actually spanks her out of anger.  It doesn't come off as hypocritical, more as loving.  He has his own thoughts of the love/bane of his life that is now a vegetable before him, but he wants his kids, or at least the younger daughter, Scottie, who is blissfully ignorant of her mom's adultery, to keep that loving, motherly impression she left before basically dying.

Matt's getting rained on with burdens, controversy and anger.  Like Viola Davis earlier this year in "The Help,"  Matt is going through pain and anguish every day, but must control himself not only to protect the ones he loves, but to protect his own sanity in the meantime.  He's a land baron, and has an extremely essential role in a Hawaiian land deal, a drug-fueled daughter, a cursing younger daughter, a cheating wife in a coma, and to top it off, his teen daughter's perpetually stoned semi-boyfriend Sid who just lives to P.O. adults.  Easily one of the best lines of the movies is when Sid laughs rudely at Matt's mother-in-law's Alzheimer's episode and Matt's father-in-law goes:  "I'm going to hit you now" and swiftly punches him in the face.  As the film goes on, you see Sid's motives.

While we're on Sid, he provides one of the most thought-provoking quotes of the whole movie (and I paraphrase a little):  "Kids don't really talk about all their problems.  We just deal with it by hanging out, having fun.")  And when tragedy strikes, perhaps that is the best thing to do.  You're not denying the bad thing happened, you just choose not to let it affect you so badly.  "The Descendants" probably will affect you,  however, which is why you should see it immediately.

Rating: 4/4 stars