The Descendants
2011 · Directed by Alexander Payne
Original language: English
- comedy
- drama
The story
With his wife Elizabeth on life support after a boating accident, Hawaiian land baron Matt King takes his daughters on a trip from Oahu to Kauai to confront a young real estate broker, who was having an affair with Elizabeth before her misfortune.
What it’s like
Warm Hawaiian daylight does most of the work here: bright, sun-bleached exteriors of Oahu and Kauai, hospital corridors under flat fluorescent light, and a lot of ordinary rooms with the sea glimpsed through open doors. Alexander Payne frames with patience, often in medium and wide static shots that let people drift across the edges of the frame, and the ukulele-tinged score and island ambient sound keep the mood loose even when the mood underneath is grief. Its vibe is bittersweet and wry, with a sharp, dry comic register that comes from people failing to say the right thing. The pace is unhurried, built around long car rides, awkward conversations and quiet waiting. Matt, a distant, self-conscious father, slowly learns to be present with his two daughters, and the arcs trace a family rebuilding its sense of itself out of anger and humiliation. Intensity is low: some strong language, a few sharp, sad emotional scenes, a brief tense moment, and no real violence, though the boating accident and the dying mother hang over everything. It suits a rainy Sunday or a reflective evening, and it is for viewers who like character-driven drama with real humour and no melodrama.
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