A few weeks ago I saw the preview for "The Descendants" which stars George Clooney. From the trailer I was able to piece together that in the film Clooney's character plays a man whose wife is in a coma and while she's in the hospital he learns from his teenager daughter that his wife was having an affair. Admittedly, a somber premise, but I still wanted to see it.
Last night, with a friend in tow, I sat down for the 7:00pm show of "The Descendants" at the Coolidge. The Coolidge is one of my favorite theaters because it's independently owned, they show all the art house movies and they show old movies like "The Wizard of Oz", "Rocky Horror Picture Show", "Grease" and more. You can even rent out one of their theaters for a private party or viewing!
We took our seats and by the time the feature presentation started, every single seat in the entire theater was full. Apparently I'm not the only George Clooney fan in Boston. Go figure.
In the film Clooney plays Matt King, a lifelong Hawaii native with a deep family history on the islands. He's a husband, father of two girls and a lawyer. Within the first fifteen minutes of the film we learn that Matt's wife, Elizabeth, was in a terrible boating accident and is in a coma. Soon after, we learn via Matt's oldest daughter, Alexandra, that Elizabeth was having an affair. Alexandra is played by Shailene Woodley of ABC Family's "The Secret Life of an American Teenager."
The film follows Matt and Alexandra's journey as they try to deal with Elizabeth's health condition, her infidelity and relating to each other.
There has been tremendous Oscar buzz for both Clooney and Woodley, for very good reason. Clooney plays Matt with the exact confusion, anger, desperation and hope you'd expect for a man in this unique situation. There is one scene where Matt has just told all of their friends and family some difficult news about Elizabeth. After everyone leaves his house, without saying a word, he just drops to his knees and then collapses on the front lawn. Without a single word of dialogue, he completely grabbed me.
Shailene Woodley's TV character is annoying and whiny so I was hoping in this new role she'd show some range, and boy did she! The character of Alexandra is resentful and pissed off, but also petrified. Woodley delivered an authentic and relatable performance.
There is a scene toward the end of the movie where Clooney, Woodley and the actress that plays the younger daughter, Scottie, are together in a canoe. I don't want to ruin it for you, but I will just say, the entire theater started crying. When the lights came up at the end of the movie, every person - male and female, young and old - was drying their eyes.
Interestingly, this film also made me want to travel to Hawaii. Up to this point I thought Hawaii was such a cliche vacation destination. For some reason, the movie made me want to go.
The director of the film, Alexander Payne, hadn't done a movie since "Sideways" and before that "About Schmidt" and "Election." He too is garnering Oscar buzz.
I would highly recommend "The Descendants", just be sure to pack some tissues!
Did you see the movie? What did you think?
*Images courtesy of JustJared, LA Times and FreeTrailers.
