"The Descendents" Embodies the Ordinary and the Imperfect Faces of Everyday

By Jeffrey Preis

There are few movies that take place in Hawaii that don’t take advantage of the Eden at hand, playing up the idea of a paradise, problem free lifestyle. During a voice-over at the beginning of the film, Matt King (George Clooney) questions why his friends think that because he lives in Hawaii he’s “immune to life.”

TheDescendants does a beautiful job of showing the imperfections in every family; the tumultuous problems that occur in a lifetime happen to Matt King all at once as he tells his wife goodbye, parenting two children with problems of their own, finding out about his wife’s love affair, and selling off his extended family’s land that dates back to the earliest white settlers and Hawaiian royalty.

It is apparent that Matt has been distant from his wife and children. He’s a successful real-estate attorney who focuses more on his work and only realizes once his daughter, Alexandra (Shailene Woodley), tells him— and after his wife is in a coma—that his wife had an affair with a local real-estate broker (Matthew Lillard).

After hearing this news, Matt leaves his house and clumsily slips on his boat shoes and begins running, rather goofily, down the street. At first it’s unclear where he’s going, if anywhere, perhaps just running from the problems that keep amounting in his life. This scene, which I understand is not atypical of director Alexander Payne, holds some natural truth to it that we’ve all faced—the need to get out.

As the self-proclaimed “backup parent, the understudy,” Matt King must step up as the Father he never was to his 17 and 10 year old daughters when his wife goes into an irreversible coma. After finding out about his wife’s affair, he wants to confront the man to let him know of his wife’s imminent death. Matt’s also is faced with the challenge of selling his family’s 25,000 acre property on Kauai, constantly facing pressure from his comically pushy cousins.

Payne directs scenes—such as Matt fleeing from his house—flawlessly. He makes it almost too recognizable, something most people can relate with directly. The film is about a broken family and the path they take to heal while constantly having to take two steps. Payne focuses on the imperfections in life and maintains this until the final scene in the movie.

It would not be fair to mention the directing without the acting. Together, the movie works wonderfully and each actor did an awesome job of portraying the struggles their characters face. Clooney makes it easy to see the years of disconnect and the obvious fear of Matt examining himself. He maintains a calm but with obvious signs of struggling—something only a seasoned actor might know how to convey. Woodley plays Alexandra whose contemptuous behavior and obvious rejection for parenting are matched by many 17-year-old girls. Every role, no matter how small, fit in perfectly and adds to the intentional slower pace of the movie.

Together, Payne, Clooney, and Woodley score almost perfectly in this difficult theme of bereavement under unique circumstances. Payne focuses on the good and the bad within us, the love and hate, and the emotions that only surface under certain—usually tragic—conditions. The Descendents embodies the ordinary—Matt King—and the imperfect faces of everyday.