{"id":17268,"date":"2011-12-20T01:14:15","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T09:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=17268"},"modified":"2011-12-20T07:00:02","modified_gmt":"2011-12-20T15:00:02","slug":"the-descendants-alexander-payne-2011-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=17268","title":{"rendered":"The Descendants (Alexander Payne, 2011): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Byron Potau<\/a>. Viewed at The Palm Theatre in San Luis Obispo.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

There are only a handful of directors whose work I really look forward to, Alexander Payne being one of them, which is why the disappointment in his latest film feels a little worse than it should. Don\u2019t get me wrong, The Descendants<\/em><\/a> is actually very well done. It\u2019s just that it is so terribly ordinary.<\/p>\n

Matt King\u2019s wife has just had a water skiing accident and is in the hospital in a coma. Matt (George Clooney) is suddenly thrust into the role of single parent to his two daughters, 10 year old Scottie (Amara Miller) and 17 year old Alexandra (Shailene Woodley). After the doctors tell Matt that his wife won\u2019t recover and they are going to pull the plug on her he must deal with his own grief as well as his daughter\u2019s. To make things more complicated Matt finds out his wife was having an affair and he is determined to talk to him if only to let him know she is going to die. Matt, along with his cousins, are also in the midst of selling a sizable piece of property in Hawaii that was entrusted to them by their ancestors, and is going to be turned into a golf course and resort by the buyers.<\/p>\n

Typically, Payne\u2019s films show their strength in the witty screenplays that allow us to find the humor in the character\u2019s pain, and laugh at the real but ridiculous situations they get into. In The Descendants the situations are familiar to Payne\u2019s style, but we don\u2019t get the humor that often goes along with them leaving us with a rather bland story that unfolds without a whole lot of fun along the way.<\/p>\n

Payne\u2019s few attempts at humor even feel out of rhythm. In one scene the youngest daughter Scottie flips off the man who drove the boat during her mom\u2019s accident. It is obviously meant to be funny, but feels out of place, inappropriate, and not funny at all. Payne\u2019s timing and ideas for comedy have certainly been better than this in previous films.<\/p>\n

Where the film does succeed is Payne\u2019s attempt to take us on a tour of Hawaii, much like he did with Santa Barbara\u2019s wine country in Sideways<\/em>. From the laid back dress style of the residents to the beautiful beaches and charming local spots all set to Hawaiian style guitar music Payne makes Hawaii another character in the film and probably the most interesting one.<\/p>\n

The story also feels a bit simplistic, father and daughters cope with dying wife\/mother, and the addition of the preserve the land angle with Matt\u2019s ancestral land being sold for a golf course feels rather hokey and forced.<\/p>\n

Clooney\u2019s performance is subdued, almost stifled at times, not allowing him to use his natural charm that his best roles make us of. His narration is also bland and unusually emotionless for Clooney. I\u2019m not sure he was really the right man for this role.<\/p>\n

With all of the praise and awards being heaped onto the film, along with Payne\u2019s track record, I expected a lot better. Nonetheless, I have no doubt that he\u2019ll bounce back with his next film which I am eagerly awaiting. In the meantime I\u2019ll just revisit some of the films that made me love his work in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Byron Potau. Viewed at The Palm Theatre in San Luis Obispo. There are only a handful of directors whose work I really look forward to, Alexander Payne being one of them, which is why the disappointment in his latest film feels a little worse than it should. Don\u2019t get me wrong, The Descendants […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}