George Clooneys got a new movie out and it's Oscar bait time! (Yes he's come along way from The Facts of Life) Okay some I'm not really that enthused but the reviews for the movie have been stellar and well, the SO is going to see Twitlight: Breaking the Bank Part 12 and doesn't want to see Clooney so I'll go to The Descendants while he giggles like a 12 year old girl.
Based on a book by Kaui Hart Hemmings it follows the journey of a man whose wife has a boating accident then goes into a coma from which her doctor tells him she will not recover. This you pretty much learn in the first ten minutes of the movie. Once he learns her fate he has to decide how to tell their two daughters. He delays telling the youngest but goes to get the oldest (I think about 16/17) who we learn is at a facility that helps teens deal with, in this case, alcohol abuse. As Clooney's character Matthew says, "she has a problem with alcohol and older men" and, as we see, a bad attitude and the mouth of a sailor. It's while telling his eldest daughter that their mother will not survive and they have to unplug her that he learns the reason the daughter and mother fought a lot recently was because the daughter found out the mother was having an affair. This floors Matt as he had no clue even though he and the wife had been slowly slipping apart recently. But wait there is more--Matt's family are also descendants (get it this is where the title comes from) of an original Hawaiian princess and they own some of the last pristine beach front property left on Kauai but evidently you can't own something in perpetuity there so they must make a decision to sell it soon or lose it, thus he his getting pressure from the cousins who want the money to chose a person to sell the land to since he is executor of the estate and has the final say. Wait again--still more--after he founds out about his wife's affair he goes in search of the guy to find out who and why. Follow that? Yeah it seems like a lot going on, which it is, but the different story lines do converge toward the end to show everything is inter-connected, I'm guessing that was one of the themes of the book and the movie. For a more in depth story description you can go here.
The movie is directed by Alexander Payne who is know for quirky dark comedies like Election, About Schmidt and Sideways--all based on books like this one. I'd seen these others and I liked Schmidt but not so much the others and for the most part I liked Descendants. It's a movie that gives Clooney a chance to look bemused, angry, sad, loving, etc.--you know a chance to really act as opposed to doing the smooth smugness thing of those Ocean's movies. And he does a good job of a man trying to hold himself together while simultaneously falling apart on the inside as his perfectly constructed world seems to be cracking around him. Which is also a common theme among the movies that Payne has done, a lead character who's built a specific world (or wall) around themselves and then one thing goes wrong and sends them into a spiral as we watch how they deal with it to bring themselves back from the brink of total collapse. Yeah I know sounds like the feel bad movie of the holiday season but don't be totally put off by all this, if you liked some of those other movies you'll like this one.
There are some good turns by surprising actors you've seen in other stuff that find themselves in a movie that is sure to garner Oscar attention--I'm thinking best movie, best actor, best screenplay adaptation, maybe a best supporting actress for the eldest daughter played by Shailene Woodley who is better known as the pregnant teen on the crappy ABC Family show Secret Life Of An American Teenager. Here she goes toe to toe with Clooney and holds her own acting chops quite well. There's also Robert Forster as the wife's cranky dad, Matthew Lillard (yes of Scream fame) as the other guy, Beau Bridges as a surfer dude-ish cousin, Judy Greer, suitably charming and off-kilter funny as the other guy's wife and there's even an appearance by Michael Ontkean(!) who I had a crush on waaaayy back when I first saw him in that "gay classic" Making Love--though here he's looking kinda old.
All in all it's a good movie that I will admit I had a tough time getting through due to the situation with the wife in a coma and having to make the decision to unplug her as she was not going to wake up. It's practically the same thing that I went through with my mom back in 2010 and similarities brought out the emotion that lingers just below the surface. My mother suffered an aneurysm that caused a stroke and then was hooked up to machines that fed her and helped her breathe. Then the doctors tell you it will not get better, that this is it and you know this is not a life or how they want to be so you make the decision to unhook and then you wait for the body to give in. In the movie it takes a few days after they unplug her for her to pass fortunately for my mom she didn't linger more than a few minutes and it was mercifully as painless as the doctors could make it, though the agony of being in that moment seemed to last and will always be inexorably with me for the rest of my life. How they did the make-up for the mother in the coma was eerily similar and on target--the dry lips, the waxy pale complexion, the way her hands began to curl under from atrophy--just made it all the more real for me. Which after the movie lead to a near break down in the mall as I tried to explain how tough the movie was for me to the SO, leading to me needing a moment and the SO just explaining to passersby that no we were not fighting, it's okay just walk on by. Ugh...embarrassing but what are you going to do except ride the wave of emotion as best you can.
That being said, don't let it depress you into not seeing the movie, it's still a good film and if you are one of those folks who likes to catch all the Oscar contenders before the telecast to make your own choices in the office pool then go see this one.
Answer to previous posts trivia: 13--boring in any language
This posts trivia: When did Hawaii become a state?
Based on a book by Kaui Hart Hemmings it follows the journey of a man whose wife has a boating accident then goes into a coma from which her doctor tells him she will not recover. This you pretty much learn in the first ten minutes of the movie. Once he learns her fate he has to decide how to tell their two daughters. He delays telling the youngest but goes to get the oldest (I think about 16/17) who we learn is at a facility that helps teens deal with, in this case, alcohol abuse. As Clooney's character Matthew says, "she has a problem with alcohol and older men" and, as we see, a bad attitude and the mouth of a sailor. It's while telling his eldest daughter that their mother will not survive and they have to unplug her that he learns the reason the daughter and mother fought a lot recently was because the daughter found out the mother was having an affair. This floors Matt as he had no clue even though he and the wife had been slowly slipping apart recently. But wait there is more--Matt's family are also descendants (get it this is where the title comes from) of an original Hawaiian princess and they own some of the last pristine beach front property left on Kauai but evidently you can't own something in perpetuity there so they must make a decision to sell it soon or lose it, thus he his getting pressure from the cousins who want the money to chose a person to sell the land to since he is executor of the estate and has the final say. Wait again--still more--after he founds out about his wife's affair he goes in search of the guy to find out who and why. Follow that? Yeah it seems like a lot going on, which it is, but the different story lines do converge toward the end to show everything is inter-connected, I'm guessing that was one of the themes of the book and the movie. For a more in depth story description you can go here.
The movie is directed by Alexander Payne who is know for quirky dark comedies like Election, About Schmidt and Sideways--all based on books like this one. I'd seen these others and I liked Schmidt but not so much the others and for the most part I liked Descendants. It's a movie that gives Clooney a chance to look bemused, angry, sad, loving, etc.--you know a chance to really act as opposed to doing the smooth smugness thing of those Ocean's movies. And he does a good job of a man trying to hold himself together while simultaneously falling apart on the inside as his perfectly constructed world seems to be cracking around him. Which is also a common theme among the movies that Payne has done, a lead character who's built a specific world (or wall) around themselves and then one thing goes wrong and sends them into a spiral as we watch how they deal with it to bring themselves back from the brink of total collapse. Yeah I know sounds like the feel bad movie of the holiday season but don't be totally put off by all this, if you liked some of those other movies you'll like this one.
There are some good turns by surprising actors you've seen in other stuff that find themselves in a movie that is sure to garner Oscar attention--I'm thinking best movie, best actor, best screenplay adaptation, maybe a best supporting actress for the eldest daughter played by Shailene Woodley who is better known as the pregnant teen on the crappy ABC Family show Secret Life Of An American Teenager. Here she goes toe to toe with Clooney and holds her own acting chops quite well. There's also Robert Forster as the wife's cranky dad, Matthew Lillard (yes of Scream fame) as the other guy, Beau Bridges as a surfer dude-ish cousin, Judy Greer, suitably charming and off-kilter funny as the other guy's wife and there's even an appearance by Michael Ontkean(!) who I had a crush on waaaayy back when I first saw him in that "gay classic" Making Love--though here he's looking kinda old.
All in all it's a good movie that I will admit I had a tough time getting through due to the situation with the wife in a coma and having to make the decision to unplug her as she was not going to wake up. It's practically the same thing that I went through with my mom back in 2010 and similarities brought out the emotion that lingers just below the surface. My mother suffered an aneurysm that caused a stroke and then was hooked up to machines that fed her and helped her breathe. Then the doctors tell you it will not get better, that this is it and you know this is not a life or how they want to be so you make the decision to unhook and then you wait for the body to give in. In the movie it takes a few days after they unplug her for her to pass fortunately for my mom she didn't linger more than a few minutes and it was mercifully as painless as the doctors could make it, though the agony of being in that moment seemed to last and will always be inexorably with me for the rest of my life. How they did the make-up for the mother in the coma was eerily similar and on target--the dry lips, the waxy pale complexion, the way her hands began to curl under from atrophy--just made it all the more real for me. Which after the movie lead to a near break down in the mall as I tried to explain how tough the movie was for me to the SO, leading to me needing a moment and the SO just explaining to passersby that no we were not fighting, it's okay just walk on by. Ugh...embarrassing but what are you going to do except ride the wave of emotion as best you can.
That being said, don't let it depress you into not seeing the movie, it's still a good film and if you are one of those folks who likes to catch all the Oscar contenders before the telecast to make your own choices in the office pool then go see this one.
Answer to previous posts trivia: 13--boring in any language
This posts trivia: When did Hawaii become a state?
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