Hawaiian Tragedy

I recently crossed another of last year's Academy nominated Best Pictures off my list: The Desendants. It stars George Clooney as a father of two daughters, living in Hawaii, whose wife has been involved in a terrible boating accident. She's been left in a coma from which she will never emerge, and so he sets about saying goodbye to her... only to learn that she had been having an affair behind his back in the months prior to the accident.

While The Descendants lost the top prize to the steamroller that was The Artist, its three screenwriters (including Jim Rash, currently appearing on the hilarious sitcom Community) did win for their screenplay, adapted from a novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings. I thought I was prepared for the tone of the movie in advance; I was instead surprised by what I watched.

I thought the movie was going to use a lighter touch, peppering the proceedings with a lot of humor around the tragic situation. Something along the lines of a 50/50. Not really. The film certainly does have a few lighter moments in it, but this is not a film about trying to face death with a smile and a laugh.

Well alright then, I thought as the movie unspooled. Perhaps the pendulum would swing in the other direction and this would be a movie designed to wring you out like a rag by the closing credits, to wrest tears from you whether you want to cry or not. Nope... it wasn't that either. The nature of the plot meant there were too many intentionally awkward and uncomfortable moments for the audience to ever give over entirely to the drama of the situation.

Instead, The Descendants ultimately offered another take on death that I've rarely seen explored in a movie: numbness. It all seemed crafted to hollow you out inside, and put nothing in to fill the space. The overall tone of the movie, to me, felt like emptiness.

George Clooney carries he full weight of the film on his shoulders. He's most assisted by the older of his two screen daughters, played by Shailene Woodley, and her boyfriend, played by Nick Krause. But without this carefully modulated performance from Clooney, the film wouldn't work. He was nominated for Best Actor for this performance, and even though it's largely subtle work, it's deserving. A few other actors you'll probably recognize do pop up throughout the film -- Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard, Beau Bridges, and Robert Forster -- though none really has more than a few minutes of screen time.

My tastes would be for a movie that picked one of those other styles I expected. Still, credit where it's due to this movie, that does find another voice and uses it well. I give The Descendants a B. You'll certainly want to already be in a particular mood when you go to watch it, but it's worth making the time to watch.