Published: 26 January, 2012
by DAN CARRIER

Directed by Alexander Payne
Certificate 15

Rating: 4 Out Of 5 Stars

Tragic, funny, melancholy, beautiful and heartfelt: The Descendants has many boxes it attempts to tick and Alexander Payne has armed himself with a big fat felt-tip pen and drawn huge lines through all of them.

The director has form for studies of men forced to navel gaze – in his middle-aged roadtrip flick, Sideways, his two leads have a series of scrapes to go through that ultimately makes them stronger.

In The Descendants, we watch a man confronted by a whole heap of heaviness, a mountain of stored-up life that George Clooney attempts to clamber over.

We meet lawyer Matt King (Clooney), a successful Hawaiian who also happens to be the sole trustee on behalf of a plethora of cousins for 25,000 acres of utterly unspoilt beachside paradise.

They are due to sell, but its his signature that will seal the deal, and so as a back story we watch him run through negotiations with his large, extended family, knowing they have to balance the need for earning oodles of cash with retaining respect for the island’s natural beauty.

This would be enough for a film alone, but instead it provides a backdrop for King to think about what is really important in his life.

His wife has had an accident in the seas off Waikiki and is lying in a coma. We learn almost immediately that she won’t recover, leaving King to break the news to his two daughters, and have a fundamental look at how he has been so far in the father stakes.

To compound the difficulties, he is then told by his oldest that his dear lady wife has been having an affair behind his back and was on the verge of upping sticks.

And all this happens in the opening scenes!

It sets the tone for a heartfelt, occasionally funny, and genuine film about family relationships, loss, forgiveness and doing the right thing.

There are some pretty stand-out scenes, and watching King confront two close friends who knew about the affair is particularly memorable, as is a one-to-one he has with his brain-dead wife.

Clooney’s lead role is helped by some excellent back-up, including Nick Krause as Sid, his daughter’s friend, who is a stoner with as much tact as a 50ft reef break.

He finds himself fed some of the very best lines. Younger daughter Scottie (Amara Miller) has drama to contend with but deals with it in a deadpan way, while Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) gets it just right as the daughter on the cusp of adulthood, who has the experience and maturity to understand what is happening and how she must deal with it.

Finally, a word about the beautiful music: we are treated to interludes of a gregarious mixture of ukelele, Flamenco-inspired cat-gut guitar, and haunting voices.