The Descendants
Alexander Payne's new film has a similar feel to his previous "Sideways" which most people will enjoy but I felt was a bit troubling. The reason is that the subject of this film, dealing with adultery and losing a loved one, is much heavier and at times I felt as if the film came off as a bit flippant. One scene in particular rubbed me completely the wrong way but more on that after later since it's a spoiler.
The acting in the film was particularly strong although I do have to admit that I did spend much of the movie feeling like a creepy old man because Shailene Woodley, who plays the high school aged daughter of George Clooney was strikingly pretty and has a look and the talent that at I think could translate to big time success in the future. Much like Julia Roberts, she's relateably pretty, in other words she isn't so good looking that she's intimidating but she's unmistakebly good looking. I've always felt that that kind of woman often has more mainstream success than most striking Hollywood beauties. (Luckily for me, Woodley is 20 years old so I can stop feeling so dirty about being attracted to her.)
As I type this review, I'm rather non-plussed by my own response to the film which kind of matches how I felt about the movie. It's one of the better films of the year and has strong acting and writing (besides the on-the-nose narration that thankfully drops out after the first act) but something just didn't come together. If you liked Payne's other works, I'm sure you'll love this film but I feel others my think that it's slow or have the same problem I did that it's kind of a superficial look at a fairly deep set of issues. In the end, it's a quality well-made film and one of the year's best that I know that some people will love it but I believe that most people will walk around with a feeling closer to "Yeah, it was good..." Then again, that's kind of how I felt about The King's Speech and that won Best Picture last year so what do I know.
My final thought is a SPOILER discussion of the scene that rubbed me the wrong way so STOP READING if you haven't seen the film yet.
The scene that bothered me was when Judy Greer's cuckolded character arrives at the hospital room, announces that she knows that her husband had cheated on her, and take a second to have a word with the dying mistress of her beloved husband. To me, the scene came off as a comedic beat, especially because Clooney gave his trademark "Uh oh!" face before he interrupted Greer's speech. But for me, it rang hollow because we just watched an entire movie about a rather absentee father trying to make sense of his wife's infidelity but when the faithful wife comes in and is equally confused and incapable of expressing herself, we're supposed to laugh at her and feel that she should be ushered out of the room.
Now I have to admit that playing the scene straight would have been far more difficult and I'm honestly not sure how you pull it off but I just felt odd laughing at her pain when I'd spent two hours sympathizing with the pain of a man who was a far worse spouse. But maybe it's just me.
