Fest Pt 3: more dying
To complete my LFF tripleheader - yet another film featuring death as a central plot point. I swear I'm not doing this on purpose...
The Descendants comes a whole seven years after Alexander Payne's last film Sideways, so to call it long-awaited would be an understatement. Saying that, Payne’s films exist in such a completely different world to most Hollywood fare that discussing them in such terms seems almost vulgar. This one centres around George Clooney as Matt King, a father-of-two struggling to cope after his wife falls into a coma from a near-fatal jetski accident. He's also responsible for the imminent sale of an important piece of land on behalf of his family, land passed down from generation to generation from their ancestors (the Descendants of the title).
Typically for a Payne movie, even the balmy Hawaiian climate doesn't shield the characters from any of fortune's outrageous slings and arrows. Both Matt's daughters have their issues, the youngest playing up at school, her older sister Alexandra in treatment for alcohol issues. And Matt's wife has a secret that doesn't remain undiscovered for too long. A slightly workmanlike opening act establishes the main players and the setting, much of it with the aid of a generic voiceover. Once that's out of the way though, Payne's usual game is free to unfold in its own uniquely organic way.
One of his recurring themes is the presentation of characters in an initially unsympathetic light, then gradually peeling back the layers to reveal the fuller picture. Alexandra is far from the fucked-up rebel that she first appears, whilst her "friend" Sid, who threatens to be a complete weapon full of surfer dude mannerisms, redeems himself in his own way later on. If that sounds like cliche on paper, well... it kind of is. But it balances so well with the film's darker themes of loss and despair. And the best of the humour comes from people inadvertently blurting out the most inappropriate thing in any given situation - in other words, right at the crossroads of funny and hugely excruciating.
Meanwhile, Clooney stubbornly continues to avoid falling into the Cary Grant-shaped light comedy niche into which he would surely be an ideal fit. His role choices are interesting and varied with very few clunkers. Who knows whether Payne - whose supporting cast here are relatively unfamiliar save for cameos from Beau Bridges and an excellent Robert Forster - would have cast Gorgeous George as the lead were he free from the constraints of studio backers and marketing suits. But at no point do you take yourself out of The Descendants because you suddenly realise you're watching A Megastar In Action. Clooney's performance here is much the same as Jack Nicholson's in About Schmidt, as he throws himself into a "normal guy" role in a film that is anything but normal.
Typically for a Payne movie, even the balmy Hawaiian climate doesn't shield the characters from any of fortune's outrageous slings and arrows. Both Matt's daughters have their issues, the youngest playing up at school, her older sister Alexandra in treatment for alcohol issues. And Matt's wife has a secret that doesn't remain undiscovered for too long. A slightly workmanlike opening act establishes the main players and the setting, much of it with the aid of a generic voiceover. Once that's out of the way though, Payne's usual game is free to unfold in its own uniquely organic way.
One of his recurring themes is the presentation of characters in an initially unsympathetic light, then gradually peeling back the layers to reveal the fuller picture. Alexandra is far from the fucked-up rebel that she first appears, whilst her "friend" Sid, who threatens to be a complete weapon full of surfer dude mannerisms, redeems himself in his own way later on. If that sounds like cliche on paper, well... it kind of is. But it balances so well with the film's darker themes of loss and despair. And the best of the humour comes from people inadvertently blurting out the most inappropriate thing in any given situation - in other words, right at the crossroads of funny and hugely excruciating.
Meanwhile, Clooney stubbornly continues to avoid falling into the Cary Grant-shaped light comedy niche into which he would surely be an ideal fit. His role choices are interesting and varied with very few clunkers. Who knows whether Payne - whose supporting cast here are relatively unfamiliar save for cameos from Beau Bridges and an excellent Robert Forster - would have cast Gorgeous George as the lead were he free from the constraints of studio backers and marketing suits. But at no point do you take yourself out of The Descendants because you suddenly realise you're watching A Megastar In Action. Clooney's performance here is much the same as Jack Nicholson's in About Schmidt, as he throws himself into a "normal guy" role in a film that is anything but normal.
That is Payne's MO in a nutshell. Character pieces about regular people and their all-too-recognisable problems. Except that conveying such truthful human portraits onscreen isn't remotely normal - it's quietly rather remarkable. Hopefully it won't be seven more years until the next one.
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