The Descendants

Contains spoilers

I am a big fan of the films of writer/director Alexander Payne. He is one of the few contemporary hyphenates who truly understands how to mine the comic in the tragic, to recognize how one event can be funny and sad simultaneously. In his latest, 2011's THE DESCENDANTS, Payne's talent is displayed repeatedly, though I cite one specific example: a young girl's show and tell photo collage. Each picture is of her mother, who recently had a water skiing accident, lying in a hospital bed in a coma. The pictures are arranged in funny angles like you would expect in a kid's project. It is so wildly inappropriate that it caused my wife and me to laugh. Uncomfortably, mind you, but laugh just the same. That one moment really gets to the essence of a Payne film. Think also of Laura Dern passed out on the ground after another aerosol can in paper bag hit in CITIZEN RUTH and Jack Nicholson and his correspondence with Indugo several times throughout ABOUT SCHMIDT. We laugh so we don't cry. Sometimes the characters are not so successful.

Another distinguishing element of Payne's works: the landscape. While it seems like every 3rd movie released is set in New York City or Los Angeles, his films often play out in "flyover" country (Nebraska for one, his home state). Hawaii is the refreshingly different site for THE DESCENDANTS, and it is a much a character as anyone else, its very locale integral to the story. Phedon Papamichael's camera luxuriates over rolling hills and mountains set aside impossibly blue waters. But it is also as if the land, at any moment, could open up and speak of its history, reveal its soul, demonstrating something far beyond its surface beauty.

George Clooney plays Matt King, an attorney who owns thousands of acres of unspoiled land on the island of Kaua'i. It falls to him, the lone heir/trustee, to decide whether to sell it to a developer for yet another hotel/resort monstrosity. There are regular meetings with an army of eager cousins who all stand to pocket largely. Matt seems understandably reluctant, nonplussed in the tradition of past Payne male protagonists, as the parcel has been in his family for generations and he has many of his own fond memories. But he comforts himself with the notion that the sale is to be made to another Hawaiian. The money will "stay local". But what would his ancestors say?

Matt has been too busy to raise his 2 daughters: 10-year old Scottie (Amara Miller), who has been acting up of late and 17-year old Alex (Shailene Woodley), away at an expensive boarding school on another island. When his wife Elizabeth has the aforementioned aquatic accident that renders her unconsicious, Matt, a self-described "understudy parent", attempts to comfort and really connect with his girls for perhaps the first time. It also becomes a period of self-examination. What sort of example has he been to his descendants?

During a heated discussion, Alex discloses that her mother was having an affair, which seems to be an even more devastating development for Matt than his wife's critical status (he eventually learns from a doctor that his wife will never awaken). It was at this point that I really began to appreciate Clooney's work in THE DESCENDANTS, his face almost imperceptibly falling into horrible realization, his posture jerking into restlessness. But never overdoing it. This is not a man prone to screams or thrown furniture. It is a deft series of reactions, a litany of emotions so well expressed in a very short amount of time. A quiet despair, a recognition of the bottom entirely dropping out of one's existence. Kudos, Mr. Clooney.

But his performance throughout the film is impressive, clearly some of his finest acting. He craftily registers confusion in some moments, embarrassment (when confronted by a mother of his daughter's insulted friend)in others. Payne's commendably unpredictable script very leisurely unfolds, following the King family and a few others, including Sid (Nick Krause), Alex's funny slacker friend, as they try to reconcile the waiting, the "meanwhile". Matt learns the identity of his wife's lover and plots to confront him, leading not to contrived or overly written tearjerking, but soul baring that rings genuine.

And during the climax, when the 11th hour runs nigh and the pathos threatens to get a little too thick, there is a speech that again manages to find the absurdly funny in the gloom. It's not like someone laughing at a funeral as a coping mechanism, not exactly. But a refreshing take on grief: unsentimental yet very human and positive. And the very last scene is quiet and hopeful, nicely rendered. I hope Payne doesn't wait 7 years again to make another movie.