Matt King played by George Clooney in The Descendants has many things:
1. A comatose wife
2. Hell-raising daughters schooled in the tradition of the anti-Dakota Fanning daughter-prototype
3. 2,500 acres of land
4. A clan of cousins who will become millionaires if that land is sold.
What he doesn’t have, is a clue.
This movie has ”Oscar Bait’ written all over it and I was already preparing myself to watch the uglification of Clooney but here he is completely believable as a middle-aged guy disoriented by life. All traces of Ocean’s Eleven and Italian suits will fall by the wayside very fast.
His portrayal of Matt King is so well-rounded that even the way he runs deserves an award of its own. There is ultimately no George Clooney in Matt King and that is a wonderful thing. (He’s already directed ‘Ides of March’ this year, I mean what does a man need to do to get an Oscar around here, for god’s sake. Be Gary Oldman?)
Middle-aged, clueless and well-off guys are something of a specialty with director Alexander Payne who also directed ‘About Schmidt’ and ‘Sideways’. Mr Payne seems to be of the opinion that the mid-life crisis is not an event, but the start of a long process that continues till you die. It’s a depressing thought at the surface of it, but Payne has a knack of revealing the humor that lies at the bottom of despair. I now eagerly look forward to being devastatingly sardonic when (and if) I hit 50.
Alexander Payne’s universe is somewhere between the eccentricity of Wes Anderson and the hyper-articulated one of Diablo Cody. If you liked ‘Rushmore’ and ‘Juno’, chances are you will like this too. It’s just a hunch. Check it out.
Footnote: at some point in the middle you will see a man who looks a lot like Jeff Bridges. Don’t be freaked out like I was. It’s his brother Beau Bridges.