The Descendants

I don't get it.


I previously said I couldn't write about this, but now I'm going to try. My main point though, is that I don't get it. I don't get why this film is particularly impressive. Oh sure, it's got George Clooney acting and beautiful shots of Hawaii and a tragic premise that causes everyone to reflect...but none of that adds up to anything substantial or meaningful. There are definitely some great scenes, but I'm not sure what The Descendants is going for. It's not quite a character study; we get just not far enough into Clooney's character, Matt's head for that. It's not quite a family drama; the well-tread (if not played out) "Father doesn't know how to raise daughters" issue is peripheral after the revelation about Matt's wife's infidelity. It's not quite about dealing with imminent death, because there's this weird subplot about whether to sell a large amount of the family land that clashes with Matt's first statement about Hawaii being far from a paradise. I suppose all of these together are supposed to have some emotions or statements about life in general, but nothing really meshes together well enough.

Take Matt's daughters. The younger one, Scottie, is used as a symbol, both of Matt's inability to understand his kids, and this scary new world of technology and vice that our preteens are exposed to these days. We see her in her first scenes in trouble both at school (for showing pictures of her comatose mother) and with other kids (for cyberbullying), and after that, her only actions of note are to have a "friend" who is nothing more than a representation of every fear about Girls These Days.

The older daughter, Alex, gets much more of a spotlight, and frankly, I sort of wish the film was about her. She's the Wild One Sent Off To A Boarding School, but Shailene Woodley manages to put real depth in this character, who has extremely complicated feelings regarding her mother and her possible death. She ends up bringing in her possible-boyfriend Sid, who is kind of a breath of fresh air, but who also inexplicably sticks around for the entire film despite having no good reason to do so. Sid is usually pretty dim but grows more profound as is required by the film. It's frustrating, because he and Alex have interesting points of view (at least, when Sid isn't being a complete moron), but it's stifled in favor of Matt's man angst. He complains about not knowing what to do with his daughters, but he doesn't really do a whole lot to connect with them; Alex is the one who kicks off the hunt for her mother's boyfriend that eventually brings them together, and Matt doesn't even tell Scottie that her mother is going to die until near the end of the film. Why? Because oh, he doesn't know how. Why trying to figure that out is less important than finding your wife's lover, I don't know.

This is a bit of a tangent, but isn't the "oh god, daughters!" thing a bit outplayed? I know we're told that Matt is a workaholic, but are you really telling me that he's this out of touch with his kids? Why is it that single dads always have this "woe is me, how do I deal with daughters?" thing about them, like girls are so mysterious that they never even bother to attempt to understand them until the mother goes on a trip or leaves them or dies or something? And of course the daughters are always Out of Control or dangerously close to it, what with the internets and the sexting and god how do they know these things it wasn't like this when I was young! shit. Are dads really this terrified of their daughters?

But, back to the film. I won't spoil much of the search for Matt's wife's lover, mostly because it's the best part of the film. Instead, I'll bring up the completely left-field subplot of whether to sell the family land. The family wants to, he has to make the decision, you probably know what happens. It's supposed to be another burden for Matt, but there's not that much reason for it besides the opportunity for some revenge and some reminiscing about beautiful times on beautiful land in paradise Hawaii (it's okay to say it's paradise now for some reason, even though before Matt insists it's not). This subplot is where the film gets its name, but it just doesn't gel with the other plots of the film.

It sounds like I'm just focusing on parts I hated, but to be honest, I was bored for the first hour and a half of the film. It meanders around without having a clear center to wander around. I hate saying that a film is boring; I really should have the attention span to watch something slow and meaningful. But there's nothing interesting about the meager scraps of meaning we get from The Descendants, so the best benefit of the doubt I can give it is that I just Didn't Get It.

And really, I don't. I have no idea why it's getting so much praise, critically and awards-wise. If this were about Shailene Woodley's character, I would understand, but it's not, and yet the film and George Clooney are getting so much attention and love. There's a very weird feeling you get when you're an attempted film buff and this sort of thing happens. Sometimes you don't like a film but can see why others might, you get the 'this person just Doesn't Get It' feeling when hearing others reactions to films, and sometimes it seems like either you're an idiot or everyone else saw a different film that you did. I'm reasonably sure that everyone who raved about The Descendants saw the same film I did (hell, I watched a SAG screener [LEGALLY, I might add], so I know they at least saw the same film), so what's going on here? What am I missing? What made this movie more interesting than a cat playing with a hanging string to everyone else?