'The Descendants' Movie Review

The Bottom Line Should you see it? Yes. Why? You should see every Alexander Payne movie. Alexander Payne loves to center his films around two things: a man and his environment. Election has Mr. McAllister (Matthew Broderick) and his Kansas high school. About Schmidt has Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) and his Nebraska homeland. Sideways has Miles (Paul Giamatti) and the Napa Valley vineyards. Payne's latest film, The Descendants, has Matt King (George Clooney) and his bequeathed Hawaiian...Read Full Story

Director: Alexander Payne, 2011. (R) Life comes at you fast. It’s often brimful of troubles and problems that we don’t see coming. Such is Matt King’s life in Alexander Payne’s independent film. He has all kinds of problems, some of which he isn’t even aware of.The film opens with a short shot of Matt’s wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie) water-skiing in the beautiful Hawaiian waters. This is the only time we see her awake. A boating accident leaves her comatose on life support in a hospital...Read Full Story

Matt King (George Clooney) is a rich Hawaiian landowner and the trustee of beautiful piece of land passed down by his ancestors. His home life is not as simple as it looks, however, when his wife is critically injured in a jet skiing accident, all the family dysfunction that Matt had either ignored of been genuinely unaware of, comes floating to the surface. We’ll all know by now that George Clooney is willing and more than able to play the oddball in films; his inspired performances in O...Read Full Story

Director: Alexander PayneI originally saw the trailer for this back in October 2011 and was intrigued to how it would play out. A lot has happened in the past few months with great reviews from America and success at the awards. The only downside to this is that in the last month my expectations have increased greatly towards this film and possibly to a level where it was never going to live up to those expectations. I tried to temper these expectations as I sat through the trailers (all...Read Full Story

“The Descendants” Nominated For : Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (George Clooney), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing What’s It About: Matt King (Clooney) lives in Hawaii with his wife, who — unbeknownst to him — is having an affair with a real estate guru (Matthew Lillard). As if that weren’t bad enough, Matt finds out about his wife’s infidelity after she suffers massive head injuries during a boating accident and falls into a coma. With the help of his reckless teenage daughter...Read Full Story