The Descendants

dir: Alexander Payne

I was so surprised when this didn’t turn out to be a biopic-documentary about the great punk band The Descendents, from whose ashes rose other punk superstars Black Flag and All, blessing the world with their fast, brutal pop-punk noise, inspiring a legion of teenage boys in Akron, Ohio and Ringwood, Melbourne, to pick up guitars in their bedrooms and then put them down again once they finished their chemistry and engineering degrees.

No. That would have been too real, too awesome. Instead, here’s George Clooney Clooning things up for the rest of us, based on the novel of the same name by Kaui Hart Cummings.

We see, for the briefest instant, a woman riding on a jet ski, who seems very happy. That’s the happiest we’re going to see her, because Clooney’s sonorous voiceover ensures that we will know quick smart that these people aren’t or can’t be happy for very long.

It turns out that the woman we beheld in all her glory is now in a coma, and her husband, Matt King (Cloons) is looking after her, and dealing more so with the fact that he now has to reengage with his family, being two daughters, which he thinks he’s not ready to do. The youngest, Scottie (Amara Miller) is getting in trouble for acting out (by saying ever so rude and hurtful things to other girls), and his elder daughter Alex (Shailene Woodley) has her own problems unsuccessfully hidden away at her elite boarding school.

Though he uses and abuses voiceover throughout the flick, Matt’s main problem, and Payne’s intention, as it often is the case with his films, is to point out that even with people living in paradise, which is what a lot of people would consider Hawaii to be, their lives can still suck a bit, and they can do shitty things to each other.

I’m not sure that’s going to come as a surprise to anyone, but maybe it needed to be said. I never really thought life was easier for emotionally distanced people living in a hot, tropical place, because I always assumed the humidity and heat would drive residents into semi-regular alcoholic rages.

With his wife in the state she’s in, Matt also has other problems on his plate, all which reinforce the fact that some people can live a life without being entirely aware of the contours of their own life, or what within it has real meaning. I assumed incorrectly from the start that the whole impetus of the story was to get Matt to care about the people around him, but, despite his voiceover to the contrary, he seems to already care about them. He laments that other people have lamented the distance between himself and others, but all we see is a person who’s not overly demonstrative chatting amiably with the people around him.

Maybe we understand that he’s undergoing, by force of circumstance, some changes, but the change as it comes across has more to do simply with accepting his new reality, which he seems pretty okay with.

This is a drama, I mean, there’s no getting over the fact that it’s mostly about a family grieving about someone crucial to their lives being gravely hurt, but this isn’t thankfully, the kind of flick where people have epiphany moments, or passionate yelling sessions which lead to understanding and acceptance and a brighter day for all concerned. Many of the scenes other directors might consider important to do directly, are elided here, or done in deliberately understated ways in order to not wallow in bathos or melodrama.

That’s not to ignore the fact that there is a heck of a lot of drama here, and there are people yelling at each other, or yelling in general. It’s just that a lot of those scenes almost have a comedic feel to them. I say almost because I might have missed the tone of the scenes, but I don’t think I did. Payne is a competent director who finds divine comedy in the sometimes pathetic things we do as a species, so I don’t think he stopped here. It’s just that several scenes play out in a way where they’re both emotionally satisfying, but lightened by the comedic light that can come from those various moments of ‘high’ drama.

Clooney is being praised all over the land for his role here, and he’s good, but the virtue of the portrayal is in a lot of the stuff he doesn’t do. He doesn’t overact, and he deliberately downplays a lot of the scenes in ways that make sense considering the character. He’s also getting a lot of the praise, I think, for deliberately dialling down the charisma and charm he’s usually known for. And maybe, for once, he's playing his age.

Personally, he doesn’t ring my bell, but he can be good in the right role, and as Matt King he assays a middle-aged character who’s fairly competent within the scope of his own life, but he isn’t a swaggering player. Like Payne did with Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt, one of the ways he likes humanising his characters is by getting them to do some physical comedy. He’s got a thing about old guys running squatly, low to the ground, in the rain, and he gets Clooney to do it here after he hears some aggravating news that blows his mind.

There must be something to it, to what Payne has in mind, because it mostly seems to work over the course of this exceptionally low-key flick. His interactions with his kids are believable and helpful, to us, because they don’t take us out of a story that could get overly complicated with the second main theme that gradually overtakes the film, which is that of we owe to those that came before us.

Overlaying the story of a family dealing with the mother’s incapacitation, there’s another plot relating to Matt’s anger towards another chap called Brian (Matthew Lillard), and another one which seems to be of little importance, seeing as it deals with a land deal encompassing tens of thousands of acres of pristine land held in trust by King’s family for generations. At first I thought its relevance to the story was symbolic. Then it seemed like it would have major significance in the plot.

And then later I realised something different. After all, it’s called The Descendants, we who have descended from others, in some instances, better or worse people than ourselves. What do we owe them, what do we owe those who’ll come after us?

Money, mostly, I guess.

Nah, it’s something more ephemeral than that.

Of the daughters, Alex seems like she’s going to be a very annoying teenage stereotype, but she ends up being a fairly vital character. In that, she gives a believable portrayal of a teenager, a very enjoyable one, that becomes less annoying as it goes on. The actress does a tremendous job, because the way she challenges her father benefits Clooney’s characterisation, and thus aids us understand the characters.

This isn’t a four-hanky-weepie, and it doesn’t wallow in melodrama. There’s a fair amount of humour laced throughout, but it doesn’t detract from the genuinely emotional moments, which are sparingly doled out. Because of the low-key way it all plays out, with practical people practically dealing with something horrible, it makes it feel pretty human without resorting to manipulating us to feel more than we need to.

The ending is about as perfect an ending as a flick like this deserves. The constant flow of Hawaiian music throughout also adds to the experience, in that it makes us feel like we’re trapped in that ukulele version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow you might have heard a million times over the years. It also gives us the impression that, watching these hurt people muddling through in paradise, like things will get better, and everyone that can, will abide, will get through it, will get to the other side.

Despite all the praise and awards it’s garnering, I’m not going to stand up and bellow that it’s the greatest thing since sliced iPhones, but I certainly enjoyed it, and certainly derived some pleasure from contemplating some of the contemplatables that it threw up onto the screen, and Clooney certainly helped by not being his usual self.

Oh, and Hawaii looks pretty amazing, too. I wonder what life is like for people already living in paradise, hmm?

8 times there’s nothing like revenge for getting back at people out of 10

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“Paradise? Paradise can go fuck itself.” – harsh words from a man in a Hawaiian shirt – The Descendants