Aloha, it’s Burl! Ha ha, would you like to spend time in
Hawaii? I bet just about anyone would! It’s always nice to see a movie that
takes you there for a couple of hours, and the picture I’m reviewing today,
whatever else it may or may not do, does that! It’s called The Descendants, and it stars none other than the handsome man of
renown, George Clooney from Return to Horror High!
He plays a guy whose family owns a big patch of land on one
of the islands, which he has to decide whether or not to sell off to one
hotelsman or another! Meanwhile his wife has just suffered a boating accident,
and he’s found out a few unsavoury things about her pre-accident conduct –
turns out she was having an affair on him! Ha ha! So while his wife languishes
in a comatose state in a Honolulu hospital, he goes about trying to corral his
wayward daughters and find the fellow his wife was sleeping with!
That’s the plot, more or less! The movie’s all about
families and relationships and unfinished business and shots at redemption so
obvious as to be recognized for what they are, and even what they represent, by
the characters themselves! It’s about Hawaii too, in a semi-sneaky way; that
is, it seeks to demythologize the experience of living there, while also
providing evidence that living there when you have enough money to keep a fancy
house and go island hopping whenever you take a notion to, can be a lot of fun!
The picture’s main argument vis-à-vis Hawaii is that tragedy and dysfunction
can strike island denizens as frequently and as hard as it can mainlanders, but
I don’t think anyone ever asserted otherwise!
The picture was directed by Alexander Payne, and as with his
other works, there’s comedy in here and drama too, and tonal shifts that are
meant to catch viewers by surprise! Unlike some of his other movies, and here
I’m thinking Election mainly, and Sideways too, there’s a dearth of
satiric energy and bite; this appears to have been replaced by a sincerity of
purpose that feels at times like a hug from an over-affectionate oaf!
But at least the loving oaf in my analogy would be wearing a
Hawaiian shirt! A little tropical atmosphere goes a long way with ol’ Burl, I
have to confess, and it’s no different here! The relaxed slack key guitar score
is a real plus too! I thought Clooney was pretty good, and that the older
daughter was pretty, and I liked that every now and again a beloved familiar
face would appear on screen, like Robert "Alligator" Forster or Beau "The Wizard" Bridges or Michael
"Slap Shot" Ontkean!
So while the picture didn’t really work perfectly for me in
the dramatic comedy realm it means to inhabit – though it has its moments, sure
sure – it was the ostensible incidentals, which were by design more central
than they pretended to be, that kept me interested! I don’t rush out to see
these middlebrow pictures as much as I used to, but I enjoyed this one well
enough! I’ll give The Descendants two
and a half punches in the eye from Grandpa!
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