Alexander Payne’s latest film takes audiences to a beautifully shot Hawaii and is a bittersweet tale that manages to balance humour and drama. As with Payne’s previous films, ‘About Schmidt’ and ‘Sideways’, ‘The Descendants’ charts the journey of a down-at-heel male character. In the case of this film, George Clooney plays Matt King, a cuckolded husband and father of two girls. Matt and his wife have drifted apart and he feels unable to take care of and relate to his daughters. When Matt’s wife is involved in an accident and suffers a terminal injury, he becomes the sole carer of his daughters. He also discovers his wife had been unfaithful with a Hawaii real estate agent and decides to journey with his daughters to a neighbouring island to confront his wife’s lover and tell him of her condition. Added to this and hence the film’s title, Matt is the sole trustee of a huge expanse of Hawaiian land handed to him from his ancestors and the film also charts the decision Matt must make between leaving the land in its current unspoilt state or selling it to developers- a sale which would add to his already considerable wealth and also that of his extended family.
Having seen Alexander Payne’s most recent and well-known films, The Descendants follows in much the same vain as those before it. Much of this film’s humour is generated from the fallibility and vulnerability of its central male lead. Like Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) in About Schmidt and Miles Raymond (Paul Giamatti) in Sideways, Matt King lacks confidence due to the hurt he has suffered from those closest to him and also the stubbornness and inflexibility that dominates his behaviour.
Payne’s films begin as the central male characters are nearing some kind of emotional breaking point. In About Schmidt, Warren’s wife has died and his relationship with his only child is distant while in Sideways, Miles’s wife has left him and his desire to be a writer is tempered by his lack of self-belief and inability to recover when rejected by publishers. The circumstances of both men coupled with their fragile mental states actually create a plethora of funny moments when these fragilities are tested such as Warren comically attacking the man his wife slept with and Miles pouring a wine tasting spit-bucket into his mouth, onto his clothes and eventually over his head as his exasperation reaches breaking point.
Payne’s men are depressed without their situations being hopeless. His recent films chart men who have homes and security but whose depression arises from their sense of dissatisfaction- existential angst perhaps. It says a lot for the skill of the filmmaker that he is able to generate audience sympathy and emotional investment from characters whose outward situations seem so comfortable and in the case of Matt King in The Descendants, so wealthy. Matt King, however, is frugal. A beautifully observed moment shows Matt in his very basic office eating a bleak looking packed lunch while his voiceover tells the audience of the kind of wealth he has and what he has inherited. He says he follows the motto of ‘giving his daughters enough money to do something but not enough to do nothing.’ This is all very true and noble but Matt’s restraint and self-imposed frugality seem to be hindering his sense of self satisfaction and adding to the sense of caution that is the cause for his unhappiness. Matt’s restraint with money inevitably leads to restraint in other aspects of his life and ultimately is the cause of his problems. Jokes are made throughout the film’s first act that if he’d ‘spiced things up’ in the bedroom or bought the things his wife wanted then their relationship would not have become so distant and perhaps she would not have been unfaithful or even had her accident. Matt King, like other Payne leads, is forced to face up to the worst aspects of his character and admit he needs to change the principles he has adopted in order to get close to those he loves to reach some kind of inner peace.
The Descendants, like Payne’s previous two films, is also a road movie, a journey of reflection and self-discovery for the male leads. About Schmidt follows Warren Schmidt as he travels across America in a Winnebago and Sideways follows Miles Raymond in his red Saab as he travels through California’s wine country. In the traditional road movie narrative tropes, these men are moving and going on a journey both physically and emotionally. The landscape is acting as a backdrop for self-reflection, a place that can be taken in and looked at as the thoughts that have brought these people here are churned over so they may come to terms with their existence and reach fulfillment. The Descendants is no different. As the film progresses, the shots of nature become more frequent and more static as the audience are given the same time to reflect as Matt King is. Matt is moving across Hawaii as he is on a journey and the longer the shots of nature become, the more their beauty can be taken in and the more Matt can reach his inner peace as he understands better what is around him and consequently more about himself.
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