LoveFilm? The Expendables will be arriving in the post tomorrow morning. About time I got a stiff injection of testosterone.
Amazon? I’m almost halfway through David Copperfield, and it’s fantastic so far. I’ll start to tackle The Chronicles Of Narnia next, but that’s a week or two away yet.
It’s taken me a while to go and see The Descendants. Other stuff got in the way, other movies. I really wanted to make sure I saw it though, seeing as George Clooney is being tipped as shoe-in for the Best Actor Oscar. I needed to see it and judge it for myself. Was it all really worth the hype? Is Clooney really Oscar-winning good?
Oh, the story first. So George Clooney is middle-aged Matt King living in Hawaii, where his wife has slipped into a coma after a speedboat accident. He has to look after his two daughters alone, both unruly in their own ways, whilst also managing the multi-million-dollar sale of his family’s land. Then he finds out that his wife had been having an affair, and Matt now has to re-evaluate his priorities, whilst trying to cope with the idea of loss and inevitability of death.
I’ve gotta tell you, this is quite an interesting film. Usually, you know pretty quickly whether you like a film or not. You can see the brilliance (or shoddiness) of a movie immediately; but The Descendants sort of sneaks up on you. I sat there watching it, fully engaged, but I didn’t feel blown away. It was watchable and entertaining, that’s all. But as soon as it ended, I left with the feeling that I had seen something truly brilliant. I mean, there weren’t any sudden twists and turns, or extraordinary narrative shift – the story moves along at quite a quiet pace throughout – but it grew on me. In the climactic scenes, it’s very emotional, and I don’t think there was a dry eye in the cinema.
Obviously, a lot of that is because of Clooney. The movie is all built around him – he’s in every single scene, he is our eyes and ears, and he’s pretty damn good. But again, I go back to the whole thing about sneaking up on you. That’s what his performance does. Right from the very beginning, it’s a very restrained performance and, frankly, I wasn’t impressed at first. But as the story moves forward, and we see that restrained character progress, you learn to appreciate the quality of Clooney’s acting. It’s such an anti-Clooney role, too. There isn’t any of that charm or wit or slickness we tend to expect; this is a character unable to express himself properly, and Clooney captures that really well.
The rest of the cast is fantastic too. Shailene Woodley plays his oldest daughter Alexandra, and is really good. Apparently, she’s in some American teen show, but I’ve never seen her before. Great, though. So is ten-year old Amara Miller, who plays Scottie, the other daughter. I won’t tell you specifics, but the scene where she is getting talked to by a doctor is really heartbreaking, and she deserves props for it. Other characters pop up here and there, making memorable cameos, but you’re watching this movie for Clooney, really, and he delivers.
One thing that really stood out for me in the movie was the music. The only music in the movie is traditional Hawaiian stuff, and it’s gorgeous. The locations, too, are breathtaking. It’s as much an advertisement for Hawaii, as it is a movie. We can thank director Alexander Payne for that, obviously. He’s made other critically-acclaimed films like About Schmidt and Sideways (neither of which I’ve seen), and everyone says this is as good as they are. He doesn’t make films very often, but they’re successful films whenever he does.
Personally, I don’t think Clooney is favourite for the Oscar gong (Gary Oldman is, in my opinion), but I won’t be disappointed if he does win it. It’s a very brilliant, very un-George Clooney performance, and he does brilliantly well with it. The sign of a good movie is its ability to stir emotions, and a cinema full of teary-eyed people will vouch for that.
And so ends another film review. As I leave you, ‘The Real Slim Shady’ by Eminem literally just starts to play. You can follow me - @writeofcentre – and perhaps follow my blog too, and tell all of your friends!
Okay, I’m sleepy now, so go away.
I was really disappointed with The Descendants. I'm a huge Clooney fan and he was great in this but the film was flat. About Schmidt is so-so and Sideways is excellent but I felt with The Descendants the plot was just way too slight and I was annoyed that the guy his wife had been cheating on him with was the same guy involved in the land deal - I thought that was too contrived. I thought his eldest daughter was a typical cliched teenage brat type character and her male friend was insufferable - it made Payne seem out of touch with the younger generation to me. What was all that about when he was laughing at a woman with dementia? Maybe a child doing that but a guy in his late teens? The music was indeed lovely but I didn't find the landscapes beautiful enough in a cinematic sense - Kubrick, Peckinpah, Leone, Malick, Ford are all truly great directors and they can make any landscape look incredibly, inspiringly beautiful - whether it is lush-greenery with blue skies and oceans, a dystopian landscape or an empty desert. Payne seemed to just set up a camera on a nice looking part of a bay - it's beautiful anyway and there was nothing particularly cinematic to add to that. The location scout deserves more credit than the director or DoP in my opinion. It didn't feel "cinema beautiful", it felt more "holiday brochure beautiful" to me. It felt neither here nor there The Descendants for me - billed as a comedy-drama it wasn't nearly funny enough to justify that genre (in fact, I can only remember one 'gag' and it's a tired one) and I didn't think it was emotional enough to be just a drama (until perhaps the very end). I'd been looking forward to this film because I love the Cloon and Sideways was excellent but it just didn't cut the mustard for me this one.
ReplyDeleteInteresting take on Oldman winning best actor mind you, I don't think he will - he's probably too understated to convince the Academy. For me it's between Clooney and Pitt - two of the best actors of their generation. The main difference between their performances was that Clooney cried in his and Pitt didn't - however, I felt more engaged by Pitt's performance and felt Moneyball was the better film so I'm crossing my fingers for Brad.
Keep 'em coming Jaf. I really enjoy your blog and specifically came on to Facebook today just to see if you had any recommendations.
Peace out. Bean.