THE DESCENDANTS

This film is well observed, smart, subdued, underplayed, but not really very entertaining or insightful.  Did I really say that a film was well observed but not insightful?  Man I sound like an asshole.  Anyway.  George Clooney is the paterfamilias of a Hawaiian family rocked by tragedy and now he has to spend time with his kids and, you know, do stuff.  He doesn't really like it, but then he kinda does.  I liked this film just as much as director Alexander Payne's other films (Election, About Schmidt, Sideways) in that I found them more or less clever and amusing but never really desired to see them again.

This film does feature a fresh take on the 'death and grief' genre.  It's the DNR. Clooney and his wife both have 'Do Not Resuscitate' orders in their wills, so when Clooney's wife becomes a vegetable during a jet ski accident, everyone must come to terms with the fact that she will be unplugged and left to somewhat slowly die over the course of a week or so, maybe longer.  People get more time to say goodbye, but people also get more time to be in denial.  And there is more time for long-buried secrets to come bursting out of their coffins.

There is a subplot about selling off 25,000 acres of undeveloped real estate which is interesting but underdeveloped.  In some ways this movie felt like a pilot for a cable TV series to me.  We've established George Clooney must learn to raise his daughter, and we've established he has gaggles of cousins who are concerned about the family trust.  Now what?  Lets take a season or two to flesh out this world.  Beau Bridges shows up as one of the cousins and barely has time to register in his two scenes.

 ~ There's a supporting character named Sid, a friend of the older daughter, whose purpose is a bit hard to pinpoint.  He seems to be a take on the old thoughtless, perma-stoned, idiotic surfer teenager, but around the halfway mark you learn that his stupidity is a kind of defense mechanism against his crappy life.  Then he doesn't really do much for the rest of the movie.

~ The funniest parts of the movie are Rob Huebel (Human Giant, guest spots on every show ever) and Mary Birdsong (Reno 911) as another couple who reluctantly deal with Clooney once he discovers the secret.

~ Robert Forster looks like he should be playing George Clooney's father but he's actually playing his father-in-law.  But somebody seriously needs to get on a movie where Robert Forster plays George Clooney's father.

~ Is one of the killers from the Scream series in this?  Yup.

~ Judy Greer is the real surprise in this movie; you might know her hilarious work on Arrested Development or Archer but she gets the dramatic powerhouse scene of the movie.  And she knocks it out of the park.

~ This movie was co-written by the writing team of Jim Rash and Nat Faxon.  Sound familiar?  Nat Faxon is the crooked-tooth German from Beerfest who appears in lots of other stuff as diverse as Bad Teacher or an episode of Mad Men (he was also the milkshake man on Reno 911 but you it's hard to tell because he's inside a milkshake).  Jim Rash was also a frequent guest star on Reno 911 but is now perhaps best known as the Dean on Community.

~ I think some famous surfers have cameos... uhh... not surfing though.

~ Worst narration since the first cut of Blade Runner.

~ There's an old adage that you can't make a good movie in Hawaii.  I'm not sure about that, but it seems difficult to make a great movie there.  The scenery out acts the players, and the cast might consider filming a movie outside of Los Angeles or Toronto to be a working vacation.