Starring: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Mary Birdsong, Nick Krause, Judy Greer, Beau Bridges, Matthew Lillard
Directed By: Alexander Payne
Run Time: 1 hour 55 minutes
The Descendants is about a family who comes together when their mother/wife is seriously injured in a boating accident.
Ah, Oscar season. It makes me see movies that I may not otherwise want to see. The setting - Hawaii - is absolutely beautiful. The premise - a wife who is lying in a hospital dying from a brain injury while her family finds out that she had been having an affair - is not a nice one. Very pretty scenery. Sad movie. So many sad things happened to the family.
One out of place interjection (because I just reviewed Mission Impossible): For as much as I fully felt that Tom Cruise was acting the whole time he was running in Mission Impossible, I did not feel as though George Clooney was acting at all when he ran (which is a good thing). It was a goofy, floppy, bizarre running style.
I thought both daughters did an excellent job, particularly the older daughter (played by Woodley). It must be a bit intimidating acting alongside George Clooney but she definitely handled herself. She played the affected - but yet very much together - teenager well. On one hand she was very immature/just being a teen but on the other hand, she had shades of remarkable poise and wisdom. The little girl (played by Amara Miller) was wonderful as a carefree child, not quite mature enough to grasp what was going on. George was just being George, a great actor but nothing that stretched him to be worthy of an Oscar nom. He should have been nominated for Ides of March, where he played off character (translation: not so likable) and was excellent.
The character of the boyfriend bothered me until I realized he was there for comic relief. The movie needed that otherwise it would have been so dark.
I loved the cozy ending. They definitely were a great family.
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