A land baron tries to re-connect with his two daughters after his wife suffers a boating accident.
A masterpiece.
[A] rich mix of relationship drama, character comedy and weighty meditation.
A wryly compassionate vision of human fallibility that occasionally threatens to slip off-track, but is anchored by one of Clooney’s strongest performances.
The Descendants is a heartfelt and tragic piece, but it’s also mature and very funny.
A marvellous follow-up to 2004’s Sideways — well worth the wait.
Moving, thoughtful and frequently hilarious, it’s good to have Payne back.
The result is a film that...manages to deliver excruciating laughs and moments of genuine heartbreak, but in a way that’s much more surprising and memorable. But it’s really Clooney’s film, and his tender, funny, low-key performance ensures the emotional pay-off is well earned.
Payne's funny, wise and moving generational tale works.
Based on a novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings it’s a deceptively low-key picture, not as laugh-out-loud funny or as overtly moving as you might expect, but with an underlying honesty and authenticity that make the characters linger long in the memory. It would be a worthy winner at the Oscars.
Payne has found his softcore style, and it's fluent and persuasive, but I preferred the earlier voice: comic, lacerating and unflinching.
A confident return to the feature filmmaking fold from Payne, and another champagne turn from a Hollywood icon refusing to age anything but gracefully.
Wry, wise, loveable and handsomely photographed.
It is intelligent, and humane, and pretty likeable; it isn't special, though, and that's what you hope and expect an Alexander Payne movie to be.
This is a film of rare maturity...in a world full of cinematic junk food, this is haute cuisine.
Even aside from Clooney’s jarring appearance, however, this isn’t Payne’s finest – mainly due to his insistence on pulling away during two moments of emotional intensity around the hospital bedside.
As is the way with Payne’s films, we go away feeling that every man is an island – and it’s only a matter of time before each of us finds ourselves deserted.
While it lacks the biting (and somewhat fatalistic) edge we have come to expect from the director who brought us About Schmidt and Sideways, Payne layers the turmoil to make for a genuinely emotional account of heartache and resolution.
This is a mature and serious film about painful adult (and adolescent and childhood) emotions, and the difficulty of the content is offset by a gentle, relaxed comedy-drama smoothness that's deceptive.
Unlike the raucously funny Sideways, my favourite of Payne's films, this is a quieter, more restrained story, sometimes sombre, occasionally amusing, always charming and unerringly real.
Payne knows the difference between lightness and frivolity, between seriousness and solemnity, between different kinds of cloud.
Alexander Payne on 'The Descendants'
Alexander Payne
Alexander Payne's The Descendants--not just for the kids, thankfully
Who should play Matt King in The Descendants? Without hesitation I said George Clooney
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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