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| A scene from 'The Descendants': George Clooney with Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller as his daughters |
Brilliant ensemble, led by Clooney and director Payne, weaves a Hawaiian lei of family and land
Even though Alexander Payne's "The Descendants" is set in Hawaii, we get to see only one hula dancer—a little plastic doll, swinging her plastic-skirted hips atop the dashboard of a white Jeep. Everyone else is caught up in a dance of life that moves to its own mysterious rhythms. George Clooney is Matt King, a husband and befuddled father with fateful decisions to make about family, mortality and real estate; he gives a perfect performance in a production filled with superb ones. At first Matt's situation suggests domestic comedy, but the film's moods change as quickly as island weather. What's comical at one moment may suddenly morph into something rueful, farcical, piercingly painful or inexplicably graceful. The key word is full. Rarely has a contemporary movie taken in so much life and revealed it with such depth of feeling.
