Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 90% (Critics) / 82% (Audience)
Directed By: Alexander Payne
Written By: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash
Starring: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Beau Bridges, Matthew Lillard, Robert Forster and Amara Miller
Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Synopsis: A lawyer tries to be a single parent to his two daughters while his wife lay in a coma suffered during a boating accident. He is also burdened with the knowledge that his wife was cheating on him while dealing with the added stress of a multimillion dollar land deal that his family is pressuring him to make a decision on.

The Good:
George Clooney’s performance was impressive for George Clooney. Not being the biggest fan of Clooney as an actor it was nice to see how well he was able to inhabit a character that was so far removed from the typical Clooney type of role. There was nothing smooth or debonair about Matt King. He was a middle-aged schlub who didn’t engender respect from anyone in this film and Clooney hit every beat of this sad, lonely man perfectly.
Robert Forster was really good as Matt’s grizzled, judgmental father-in-law especially in the scenes where he came to grips with the fact that his daughter’s life was going to be ended soon.
Nick Krause was hilarious as the far too laid back Sid and Judy Greer was sufficiently Judy Greer (which is a wonderful thing in my book).
The movie was gorgeous to looks at which shouldn’t come as a surprise since it was shot in Hawaii but even the scenes that were not shot in the middle of lush flora and fauna looked great.

The Bad:
The movie felt very episodic. I also never got a real feeling for Matt’s wife Elizabeth and as a result didn’t really give a crap about when or if the plug was pulled on her or even what she was doing cheating on her husband with an absolute slug like Matthew Lillard’s character.

The Ugly:
Beau Bridges was criminally underutilized.

Final Verdict: In the annals of Alexander Payne films I would have to put THE DESCENDANTS waaaay at the bottom. It didn’t have any of the bite of films like ELECTION or CITIZEN RUTH and it didn’t make me become fully invested in the characters like I was with SIDEWAYS. A very surprising performance by George Clooney and nice jobs by some of the supporting actors worked for me but overall I was not all that impressed. C