ThiefHott Too much of everything

Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

albertsmith-32785 This is a great film about a man who tries to reconnect with his daughters and sort things out after his wife is critically injured in a boating accident. Alexander Payne has surely become a voice to be reckoned with, and each new film of his brings about a new layer of complexity to his work. George Clooney manages to show us that he indeed a good actor when in his element and both Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller are exceptional as his daughters. The setting is gorgeous Hawaii and although this isn't a "visual" film per se there is a symphony of sorts between the emotions of the main characters and the seas and plains of Hawaii. This is one unmissable film.

betty dalton First proposition: Your wife is in a coma. You find out she had an affair. What do you do? Hate her for it, or do you forgive her? Second proposition: You are already very wealthy, but if you sell a big piece of land, that has belonged to native hawaiians for centuries, you will become multi millionaire. Will you sell the land to a big hotel chain, which will build hotels and casino's, and become even wealthier or will you preserve this pristine piece of nature land for the native hawaiians?"The Descendants" is the story about a grieving family on Hawaii. George Clooney has to take care of his 2 daughters alone, because his wife is in a permanent coma. Then he finds out his wife was cheating on him. How he deals with these feelings of betrayal is what this delicate story is all about. How he raises his 2 teenage daughters on his own while his comatose wife probably isnt gonna wake up again, is the other part of the story. It is a moving story about the LOSS OF family and it also about THE BETRAYAL BY family. Director Alexander Payne wrote and produced this movie. It is sad at some moments, still quite funny at other moments. Sweet and melancholic, is the general mood of this story. Delicate and peaceful story. Very touching. This director has got the talent to make any picture he makes glow in a feel good light, without getting sentimental.I usually avoid pictures about sick hospitalized people, spare me that drama, because I will get so sad seeing it. And although "The Descendants" deals a lot with sickness, loss and grieving of family members, there are enough funny moments to keep this story upbeat enough to be able to enjoy it as a sweet, melancholic story. This family WAS broken up, but has found a way to HEAL and become closer then they were before. It really touched me. Felt at peace in the end. Lovely bitter sweet portrait of a family at drift...

sharky_55 Payne's pathetic leading men tell the stories of backstage stars, the forgotten roles, the lives outside of the limelight. They're visibly and mentally past their prime, although they're not always happy to admit the fact. How does Clooney's Matt King fit in with this echelon of middle-aged men yet to come of age? He's too good looking, for one. Did I say leading men? Payne's muses are more like character actors that aspire to be leads; the sidekick from Sideways is actually a former heart-throb gone to seed, who relies on the odd woman to notice his fading good looks and small claim to fame. Clooney, on the other hand, has only ripened with age, still the gold standard for a Hollywood sex symbol. He might not be up to it physically (and the film makes light of this in a painful jog slash speedwalk), but in spite of his opening monologue (which should be laced with bitterness but ends up more satisfied), Matt King seems to have it all. Why have the monologue, anyway? Payne's always been a great director of actors, and although the technique's been used to good effect before (Nicholson's entire series of letters in About Schmidt is a revelation in slow growing humility), these men have always told more through body language and action. I guess Clooney doesn't have the same gravitas of a Nicholson or a Giamatti, who channel their mid or late life crisis through physical decay and a panicked realisation at what they haven't achieved. Clooney may run funny, but he's too casually dashing to convincingly portray someone at odds with his entire family, much less someone work obsessed and liable to be cheated on. His persona made much more sense in Up in the Air, an incentive-driven, one man crusade set to disprove the 'no man is an island' mantra, so focused on a single number he eventually begins to doubt himself. In many ways The Descendants is Payne's weakest film to date, a clunky mishmash of Payne's better marks, like the sharp edge of a comic satire in Election, and the dissection of red-faced protagonists who splutter and stumble their way to an eventual understanding of their flaws and features. There's so much secondhand embarrassment in the desperate appeals of his earlier characters for lost glory; their lives are mishap after mishap, and after a while they're not sure whether to laugh or collapse into a miserable heap. The Descendants, by contrast, seems rather embarrassed of these characters' downfalls, not content to allow scenes to simply wallow in their melancholy. It's dripping in bathos; almost every moment of sentimentality has to be livened or 'saved' by comic relief. The most annoying intrusion is Sid, the inappropriately-stoned boyfriend walking straight out of a raunchy comedy, with the tact of a whooping megaphone. When Judy Greer forgives Elizabeth in a tearful eulogy near the end, Matt is visibly embarrassed by this show of emotion; he's the deceased's husband and yet hasn't cried this much over the whole affair. But his quick move to usher the hysterical woman out of the hospital room is flippant enough that the moment is more comedic than introspective. Payne doesn't hang Matt out to dry as much as his other protagonists, perhaps because his unique situation is an ethical dilemma for the ages. The entire movie is a painful journey for closure that may never be found; how exactly do you extract answers from a soon-to-be corpse, much less hurl angry abuse that will forever fall on deaf ears? Matt finds strength in having to replace Elizabeth's role as the available parent, and in his journey goes from someone whose dialogue is written like a babysitter's, to someone who finally finds common ground with his family and heritage. How it all goes down is a little hokey - that precious, delicate ceremony where they spread her ashes at sea - but then Payne finishes with one of the most startlingly realised endings of his oeuvre, depicting a family that hasn't quite gotten over what they've been through, but has survived and will continue to do so together.

Fallen Eye A very authentic film, that evokes on numerous occasions, conflicting and vacillating emotions. At one point The Descendants was sitting at a solid 5/10 for me, but then when it was all said and done, after all the goodbyes and apologies, ultimately the film hit a well deserved 7.3/10.It dealt with matters that I hadn't really seen in a motion picture before, while simultaneously running another story, of love, in such a special manner; in that, The Descendants created a dialogue between itself and the viewer.Matt was a comprehensible character, that was dealing with many conflicting emotions as best he could. Alex was a testing character, but also ultimately understandable. Sid... Oh Sid, a very vexatious character, that you end up perhaps, hating to love.Alexander Payne had a fairly excellent stab at depicting these characters that fluctuate so often, emotionally and logically. The conclusion to all the moving parts in their different directions was quite satisfactory also.The Descendants was more than decent, and descended and ascended as erratically, though understandably, as the Pacific waves surrounding Hawaii.