With George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Matthew Lillard, Judy Greer with Beau Bridges and Robert Forster

    Poignant, is the only word that I know that perfectly describes an Alexander Payne film. Payne has a unique ability to make our own feelings bubble to the surface as we watch the painful landscape of a family collapse in front of us. But Payne is very sly in his subtle use of humor that softens the life examining situations that arise. “The Descendants” follows in line with his previous body of tragic comedies that examine the core of the modern American Family.

A much deglamorized George Clooney guides us through this new epoch of Payne’s filmography and uproots us from the Midwest, where Payne has set his previous films, and takes us to anew and just as foreign place, Hawaii.

Clooney plays Matt King, a reluctant patriarch who has to come to terms with his wife’s lingering death, reaching out and informing his family, reconnecting with his daughters while juggling a multimillion dollar land deal where King is the sole trustee to his family’s legacy.

This land deal not only holds the financial future of his dead-beat extended family, most of which is made up of free spirited cousins who just live to straight up party, but also holds the fate of a Hawaiian island in the balance.

Oh, and his daughter informs him of his wife’s infidelity with a schmucky real estate agent played by Matthew Lillard. Yes. Mattew Lillard.

Fuck being Matt King.

    With Clooney giving a career best performance in this film, as well as giving his career best film with “The Ides of March”, you have to start to accept (if you haven’t already) that Clooney has inherited Warren Beatty’s mantle. Clooney gives a stripped down portrayal as an everyman who struggles with the extraordinary aspects of life.

Clooney’s persistent execution of continuously letting us forget that he’s not George Clooney, but Matt King is truly remarkable and is going to win him the Best Actor Oscar this year. His talent seems to not have any boundaries, as he constantly pushes himself with each new film he presses out.

The supporting cast firmly backs Clooney, and won’t allow his star power to overshadow their own performances. Veteran actor Beau Bridges shows up as a laidback trust fund cousin who is pushing a reluctant Matt King to sell off their family’s land. Bridges is very effective, and is able to counter King’s animosity and inner torment with his light and breezy demeanor.

    The great Robert Forster plays King’s hard barked father-in-law who is the pure essence of the “old school” alpha male. Seeing the frame filled with both Clooney and Forster is an overwhelming feeling of anxiety and awe. Just as Tim Burton’s “Batman”, the only believable boss for Jack Nicholson is Jack Palance, here the only believable father-in-law to Clooney is Forster, who deserves an Academy Award Nomination for his heartbreaking performance.

Alexander Payne is our most talented overlooked filmmaker who continues to put out touching and heartfelt films that never get wrapped up in themselves and don’t become soapbox films. I will continue to look forward to Payne’s films and his love for cinema, and for his terrific vision that he never lets get the best of him.

Rating: 9.5/10

And look! Tim Matheson agrees with me that Robert FORSTER should be nominated for an Academy Award, too. Just sayin…