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Created Dec 01, 2011 10:35PM PST • Edited Feb 03, 2021 06:23PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Descendents descend from families. The Descendants is about concentric families in crisis: an exploding nuclear family, a feuding extended family, an enduring multigenerational family. They all center on George Clooney’s reluctant patriarch, the trustee of a landed Hawaiian dynasty.

   Clooney’s clan is haole in the extreme, almost British in their emotional remove. They’re even stiff jointed, never more than in Clooney’s comic run to a neighbor’s house. They’re also contact avoidant in the extreme, with no hugging except in extreme circumstances. Make that super extreme circumstances.

   The movie touches many issues familiar to we parents of Clooney’s generation: unexpected loss, precociously foul-mouthed teens, elderly dementia, the web of issues spawned by family property. Guilt drives the story, a dysfunctional emotion that gets wielded repeatedly within the family and in their relationship to the inherited land they must sell or steward.

   Many lines simply turn the screw, Clooney’s character being a pushover for all 360 degrees of his family: daughters, cousins, in-laws, even his comatose wife we come to learn. He receives one emotional blow after another, reacting with various forms of slow burn, his great blockhead rocked around like an emotional punching bag. As an artist, he gets maximum use from his instrument – his movie-star head.

   Clooney has now been in two Great American Movies in two years. While The Descendants doesn’t reach the almost unblemished perfection of Up In The Air, it’s still really great and encapsulates a significant nugget of America today. Thus it is a worthy Great American Movie.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   George Clooney has a head that Clark Gable would covet. His other movie star gifts include a baritone with a hint of grumble, which makes everything he says sound consequential. Notwithstanding playing an emotional zero, he doesn’t squander the great lines he’s been gifted. Still, his performance as a Hawaiian scion isn’t the home-run the commitment-phobic consultant he played in Up In The Air was.

   TV star Shailene Woodley makes the jump to movie stardom as his daughter. Though twenty years old, she has the skin of her 17 year old character and the body of a jeans model. Seriously, her legs are longer than Clooney’s, for heavens sake. Talented and leggy, there’s a recipe for success in Hollywood!

   Nick Krause slyly worms his way into the movie’s heart as a goodtiming boyfriend who ends up being a pretty good guy.

   The strong supporting players include several familiar faces.

   • Beau Bridges as a slyly manipulative cousin.
   • Laird Hamilton, famous surfer, as a doltish dude.
   • Robert Foster as a macho grandfather.

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Really Great 4.5

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    Alexander Payne has become the master of bittersweet American stories, with The Descendants the latest in his oeuvre. As in Sideways and About Schmidt, he lampoons recognizable foibles of contemporary people while not turning his subjects into ogres. He’s the rare satirist who actually seems to like people.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Great 4.0

13. Music Perfect 5.0

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    Payne shows the fabled land in Kauai in architectural renderings of a proposed development several times. Ultimately then when he shows the real thing, complete with crescent beach, it is jaw dropping.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.1

    A terrible boating accident gets the movie going, though the edgiest moments spring from a teen daughter’s shockingly foul mouth.

17. Sex Titillating 1.7

18. Violence Gentle 1.5

19. Rudeness Profane 3.1

21. Reality

    Glib 1.1

    Obama’s Hawaii.

    It’s said that the President doesn’t understand our country, its people or its economy. Extreme voices have even declared him unAmerican. He’s not. He’s Hawaiian. While not a descendant of Hawaii, he’s most certainly a product of the Hawaii depicted in The Descendents.

    • The story stands as an object lesson in the supposed virtues of the Death Tax.
    • Business is shown avariciously, not enlarging the pie but stealing slices for the unworthy.
    • Lawyers shake their heads a lot. Obama’s a lawyer who does that.
    • Children of privilege graduate Punahoo atop society. One went all the way to the White House.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.4

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0