"Trouble in Paradise"

THE DESCENDANTS

Year: 2011
Country: United States
Language: English
Number: 1101
Director: Alexander Payne
Starring: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Beau Bridges, Judy Greer
Oscar wins: Best Adapted Screenplay
Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (George Clooney), Best Editing

Alexander Payne's lasted drama-comedy The Descendants is another deep film, with an extremely well chosen cast that hit the right notes. Although I don't think it overcomes none of his earlier films like Sideways and About Schmidt it's still a pretty solid peace, and a superb performance by George Clooney in his prime.

The Descendants is set in Honolulu, Hawaii where the lawyer Matt King (George Clooney) is trying to prepare family and friends for the horrible news that his wife, Elizabeth who have been in a coma for weeks, and the doctors have told him that she never will recover, that she's in a comatose state, and that it's better to pull the plug. Matt already has enough trouble with his two daughters, Scottie and Alexandra whom he don't seems to understand. Alexandra who is in her late teens, suddenly tells her father that her mom had an affair with another man behind his back. And the rest of the movie we follow Matt trying to find the man she was sleeping with so he can inform that's his wife is dying.

This is a pretty good concept that Payne picked up. The idea of Hawaii as any other ordinary place in the states, with the same problems and crisis. Just because there's sunny beaches doesn't mean it's a permanent vacation. It's like Terms of Endearment, only set in Hawaii. George Clooney's performance isn't over done, he plays a perfectly realistic dad like Dustin Hoffman did in Kramer vs. Kramer. And there's also Shailene Woodley who does a perfect movie debut as Matt's teenage daughter. Thumbs up.

Grade: B+

You can read all my reviews on:

http://www.flixster.com/user/filmfreak93