Envigorated with all we accomplished over Memorial Day weekend, my husband and I actually committed to watching a whole movie (instead of spending a movie-length space of time watching Buffy and The Office on Netflix because it’s too late to start a movie). We chose The Descendants, which came out on DVD in March of 2012.
There is nothing more frustrating than a movie that could have been good, but just plain isn't. Oh, there were some good things about it. It's beautifully shot, and, as a Reel Faith review points out, it treats both end-of-life decisions and adultery as extremely serious issues.
This movie tries so very hard, from the very first moments, to shake you out of your illusions. It warns and warns you that things are not what you think they will be: George Clooney's voiceover as Matt King spells it out for us, explaining that life in Hawaii is no paradise -- that the people there have just the same pain and suffering as people anywhere. “THIS IS GOING TO BE DIFFERENT,” the movie fairly screams.
In a typical move, a character is introduced, he is put through his ordeal, and he comes out at the end -- but wait! There’s a twist, something which tests the firmness of his transformation. And he either wins or fails, but you see what has happened to him at the end; you can see what the rest of his life will be like.
In this movie, there are nothing but twists from the very beginning: Matt King’s wife has a boating accident; it turns out that her coma is irreversible, and her living will says no life support; their family is not merely unpleasantly bratty but profoundly miserable; and finally, it turns out that the wife has been having an affair and was planning to ask for a divorce. This all happens within the first third of the movie.
Now, there is nothing wrong with turning things on their heads like that. But if you are going to frontload all the twists and turns, there had better be a really strong and satisfying psychological denouement to counterbalance the action.
Parallel to the action involving King’s family drama, there is the question of how he will handle a huge and emotionally charged land deal. Several cousins own thousands of acres of pristine tropical land, and have been planning to sell it and split the immense profits -- the only question is, sell to whom? King is the executor.
His problem is, and apparently always has been, that he’s not a true executor of anything. He’s passive, someone who lets things get worse, comfortable with letting other people make decisions. We know this because he tells us so, repeatedly.
Not only does the film tell more than show, I don’t believe what it tells me: that King somehow conquers his fatal flaw at the end. Never once does he follow through on anything, good or bad. He stifles his impulses, sometimes out of fear, sometimes out of a dubious sense of decency. Faced with crisis after crisis, does he change? Not that I can see. And if not, WHAT WAS THIS MOVIE ABOUT?
The set up suggests that his comatose wife is somehow connected with the unspoiled land: it’s just lying there, and he has to figure out what to do with it. It’s a great idea for a movie: the central character of the film, the one around whom all the action swirls, who effects every single person, and who is a silent witness to the harshest truths inside everyone’s hearts, as they spill their guts in the hospital room -- this pivotal person is silent, wordless, a blank canvas. And as she lies dying, her suffering family returns to go look at the land, to remember how they used to go to it as children in their time of need. Stunning idea! So what do they do with it?
Nothing. There is some vague speechifying about how the cousins, who own the land, all have Hawaiian blood in their veins, and so therefore it is important to keep things going. In the pivotal scene, where King says goodbye to his wife one final time, he reveals that he has grown: from his initial response of guilt over the past and vague hope for the future, to the rage of placing deserved blame at her feet, and finally to a place of peace and brutal truth, where he delivers himself of this unbelievable speech, lifted straight out of Deathbed Scenes by Hallmark:
Goodbye, Elizabeth. Goodbye, my love, my friend, my pain, my joy. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.
Yeah. So if you can imagine George Clooney saying this, doing that George Clooney thing where he acts like he’s acting, rather than just going ahead and actually acting, you will see what was so frustrating about this movie. It promises everything, and gives almost nothing in return: no risks, nothing unusual, nothing to remember or startle or inform, or even give us hope that there is anything really good to come after the final frame.
I suppose we’re supposed to come away thinking that sometimes it takes terrible tragedy and loss to bring us back to what we really need. Matt King ends up snuggled on the couch with his daughters, sharing the blanket that covered his wife when she died, jocularly passing around bowls of ice cream. And that’s supposed to be good enough for us.
I want to tell him, “Look! Your teenager is going to go right back on drugs once the novelty of being supportive wears off! Your ten-year-old is not going to be okay just because you hug more now! Just like with the land deal, you have all just kicked the can down the road, and have mistaken the reprieve of exhaustion for actually achieving something!”
Why does this movie bug me so much? I guess because it plays games with the viewer -- the very games which the characters all play with their own lives, mistaking nuance for achievement. King explains early on in the movie, “I don't want my daughters growing up entitled and spoiled. And I agree with my father - you give your children enough money to do something, but not enough to do nothing.” Somebody should have extended the same tough love to the makers of this film.
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Yes, this is pretty much what I thought about the movie. The week we watched it, we had also watched Gran Torino with Clint Eastwood. I did not have high expectations of GT, but was pleasantly surprised, and it’s a perfect contrast to The Descendants, which is always nice when you want to write about something.
I watched GT because a friend told me it was really Catholic. I was worried at first, but she was right. The language is really bad and not at all PC, but the main character isn’t really a PC sort of guy. Then, I’m not either—a guy OR PC.
AMDG
My husband and I were up until midnight watching this movie last night—something we NEVER do because, exactly as you said, there just isn’t time at night anymore so we usually end up watching something like the Office on netflix! Your entire first paragraph perfectly described us as well as our weekend. we weren’t impressed with the movie, either. was I suppposed to be surprised he didn’t sell the land? also we have three girls ages 4 and under who we teach tirelessly to be good, polite girls so it was AGONY to watch the two young girls in the movie self-destruct. I just wanted to shake George Clooney and scream, “stop letting them get away with things and using that language!!”
Valid observations. I somewhat enjoyed it, but I had very low expectations since I normally dislike George Clooney movies. And I did appreciate the seriousness and respect for the sensitive issues, which is probably the main reason I liked it. The one point I have to disagree with is that the movie tries to be different and shake us out of our illusions. None of the opening act “twists” surprised me, but maybe that was because they were all revealed in the 5 million or so previews. (That number is not figurative; I saw more previews for The Descendants than I could count.)
We recently debated between watching this or Win-Win, and ended up with the latter. Go see Win-Win, it has everything you missed in the Descendants.
Simcha is right about The Descendants, and Becca is right about Win Win.
I so agree with this. I expected more, but other than the scenery making me want to take another trip to Kauai, there was nothing worth recommending in this movie. It could have been something, but turned out to be kind of nothing.
My gosh - it’s just a movie! Stop trying to put your own story into it.
@billy: huh? Besides the intro paragraph, which part was my own story?
My gosh - it’s just a movie!
My gosh—It’s just a critique of the movie! Stop trying to prevent people from sharing their reactions.
Oh, Simcha, you know: the part about immense family wealth, and the Hawaiian blood coursing through your veins.
@catherine - I thought maybe the part where the kids come in and yell at the mother, and she just lies there, staring at the ceiling.
all just kicked the can down the road
Very inquisitive. Somehow art reflects life with the current children in office (had to get that off my chest).
The movie was ok, but only because they actually did extended scenes on my home island, Kauai. Outside of that, it seemed like it could be heart-warming, but in the end, it showed how cruel and heartless the culture of death can be.
Like every other movie, this one was better on the big screen, especially for the scenery. It depressed me though, and affected me into the evening, because as you pointed out,one is left with a sense of unfulfilled destiny. Perhaps this is as honest as it gets with those who have no sense of a soul or eternity. To say it is anticlimactic, is an understatement, but it is realistic for how narrow and lacking in depth life must become without faith.
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I thought the daughters gave good believable performances. I liked how they really did all look like watered down Hawaiians. My problem with George Clooney in general is his smugness. He always looks like the cat that swallowed the canary, even if he’s figuring out his wife is a cheating piece of work. Didn’t you want him to deck the smarmy real estate agent who was squirming around with his wife? I think my sense of revenge wasn’t adequately fulfilled by the botched real estate deal. The guy really needed a pounding. But I liked the part where he resists telling his wife’s parents what really happened even though they are goading him mercilessly. He proved he had virtue at flashpoint moments. Not telling the real estate agent’s wife, in that moment of painfully restrained confrontation with her husband made him nearly saintly. He won me there.
I agree. Clooney’s character is a bit of a let down, but I do also agree that he did show some virtue by letting his father-in-law’s criticisms slide. Simcha, I’m interested to know your take on the forgiveness scene by the lover’s wife. I was really moved by it and thought that redeemed the movie for me. But admittedly, you are a much better critic.
I enjoyed watching this movie. But that’s just about it. It’s just a movie, meant to entertain. Just stick to the positives and forget all the negatives.
I did not like this movie - I wanted to but couldn’t. The scenes that were supposed to be funny weren’t, and the scenes that were supposed to be touching were not. I am known as one who identifies too much with characters and am usually the first (and sometimes only) one to cry at tender scenes. I was left unmoved by much of this movie; I particularly did not like the scenes were the characters were yelling at the comatose wife. I could “feel” the acting - they did not ring true for me. Such a disappointment.
I ask myself the same question, but phrase it in the form of a statement. Just kidding. I recommend The Great Flamarion, starring Erich von Stroheim. No kidding.
I haven’t seen this movie, but reading through the comments I feel inspired to say something. :)
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Some movies are truly just entertainment; they are not meant to be much more than something to make you laugh or cry or feel romantic or sit on the edge of your seat, and in general, critiques of those movies are pretty worthless because there is very little SUBSTANCE to analyze.
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But some movies are designed at the outside to be gritty and hard and reflect certain truths about life and humanity. These movies set themselves up to make the viewer face the harsh realities of this world. I suppose one could argue that some people really are like the character Simcha describes—weak, passive, a non-achiever—and they never do change, so this movie is honest in that regard. But then the story has a responsibility to show how destructive that is. The point of great literature and movies is that they should affect the viewer, SHOW him either how a character overcomes flaws and/or obstacles and triumphs, or in failing to do so, destroys himself and what he loves, because that’s reality.
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It sounds as though The Descendents is a movie that was meant to fit into the latter category, in which case Simcha’s review is perfectly valid. Sorry, billy! :)
I recommend “Courageous” - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1630036/
I’ve never seen this movie, but unfortunately, (according to your review) I want to watch it now.
My only thought after reading this, is, the ending may upset you, but it sounds like it is what people “normally” do.
Faced with crisis after crisis, I know MANY people who can’t or refuse to change.
Or like you said, they think hugging more will fix the problem. Quick fixes, and mostly avoiding/ignoring.
It’s just what people do.
I LOVED this movie. Unfortunately I saw it months ago so I’m in no position to refute your well-formulated critique. I didn’t see his comatose wife as being at all connected with the estate on Kauai. What I did see, reflected in the title, is how ‘the descendants’ had degenerated, tragically. While the protagonist is the heir to untouched land, his children are the heirs to what? Deceit, selfishness, nihilism. I felt wiped-out at the end of this visually sumptuous film, the little flock of disconnected people trying to reassemble, desperate for some gravity. A modern-day tragedy.
Yeah. I saw this movie and felt the same way. It was pretty useless. They had a powerful topic and didn’t know what to do with it except dirty it up with filthy language from kids, feeble attempts at correcting those same kids regarding their behavior, miserably lost adults and a heavy dose of contempt for the dying. I suppose what I mainly got out of it was that those who created this movie never had anywhere positive to go with it to begin with - due to them being restricted by their own self-imposed code of political correctness. I guess I should be thankful the main character wasn’t Catholic so the writers couldn’t blame the church for everything.
The movie is not even worth a review. It was terrible. Insanely, laughably awful. Not well acted, either.
@jaime, I think Simcha already has an opinion on Courageous. ;)
I liked this movie very much because it was about “real” people dealing with heavy emotions and because it didn’t have any vampires or men wearing tights or a cape. It did feel vaguely empty at the end and now I understand why. You’re so right about the the unrealized potential of this film. I tend to miss the metaphorical stuff in a story so thank you for pointing it out to me. I only like the movie a little less now.
You also made me see that I am too much like Matt King (passive, someone who lets things get worse, comfortable with letting other people make decisions-me to a T) but I don’t have any idea what I’m supposed to do about it. Well that’s a scary thought. Now I like the movie a whole lot less.
After reading your post here’s how I end this movie…First you off the wife and sell the land…take all of the money for yourself. Kill the siblings or whoever is invested in the big plot of land. It is in Hawaii right? Yeah ok well then you buy a plane and mark it with Oceanic on the side and sink it with cadavers near this island and have a real plane crash land with 50 survivors one on one half and some one the other…That’s just me :-)
@ Tito…your comment “in the end, it showed how cruel and heartless the culture of death can be” Im confused…what about the moms care did you think was typical of the “culture of death?”
Im a faithful Catholic who is also a nurse who works in end of life care and am pretty well versed in the difficult intersection of culture, faith, medical interventions reaching the end of their capacity and impending death. The one thing I think they portrayed somewhat inaccurately is that they said she will die because of her living will…in reality a person that sick might be in a natural shut down mode and on her way out, it is not like there is some other option.The Church does not obligate any of us to submit ourselves to futile care. The actions of the family were perfectly reasonable to me.
The Church allows us to decline burdensome treatment with no expectation of recovery. I have an Advance Medical Directive and it specifically refuses ventilator dependency (especially in the case of quadriplegia) if I were in that same situation, my family would be getting a Priest to give me Viaticum and disconnect the vent.
It is important to know that you have the right to request continued intervention (even if futile) if you dont think such care is an excess burden…you have the freedom to define that burden for yourselves. You can use an Advance Directive to specifically direct that care for yourself…it is a misconception that an Advance Directive is only to limit care…you can request care too.
It is rare for media to get end of life care exactly right…they normally have some crucial error thrown in that increases plot drama…my family is used to me yelling at the TV over the misinformation that is being perpetuated in any given show. Just tell me and I will give you an ethical treatment of the movie “Million Dollar Baby”.
Nurse Tammy - I’d like an ethical treatment of the movie “Million Dollar Baby” please! :D
I loved the movie. I was so glad for once to see teenagers that were acted by teens instead of 30-somethings; the girls made the movie for me, with their brashness, bravado, naivete and vulnerability. The screwed up family reminded me a lot of my desert hometown, where kids do drugs and parents do a bad job fixing things. I liked that the idiot boyfriend didn’t really have profound insights that taught the adult, but that he was able to express some level of grief. At the end, I didn’t think the family would be ok; the dad is still a smug b*stard, the older daughter will still date a loser and probably do drugs, and the little girl will still be bratty, but at least they will be a mess together rather than isolated. If they have any chance to change, it will be because of their relationships. They have a long road ahead, but maybe it can be a better one.
I just wanted to add some context about my background:
Did you ever see “Winter’s Bone?” It made me homesick, though I didn’t grow up in the Appalachians. No, it was the meth-dealers, clannish families, and random, terrifying rage that made me think of my desert hometown. Thank God my family was different, but when I see movies about semi-rural messed up people, I can’t help but be happy.
@sciencegirl: In fact I reviewed _Winter’s Bone_: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/simcha-fisher/true-grit-and-winters-bone
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Don’t get me wrong - -I don’t require all my movies to be tied up in a big happy bow where everyone dances off into a bright future of rainbows and unicorns! It’s just that I thought that the movie itself was implying that it had resolved all the problems the family was facing, but I thought it had failed in showing that.
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@Nurse Tammy - thanks for clarifying about the end of life issues. I agree—there wasn’t anything in the movie that would have been contrary to what Catholic teaching allows, as far as I could tell.
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My husband noted that there is a sale at the liquor store this weekend, so maybe we’re finally ready to watch and review _Courageous!_
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Another of my problems was that the foul language was very inexpertly done. It’s unpleasant to hear lots of cussing, but it’s REALLY unpleasant to hear it done in a way that nobody does it.
@Nurse Tammy
When the doctors ask the father of a “brain dead” to pull the plug on life support in order to get fresh and healthy organs harvested and the father balks while the son comes back to life—fully recovered.
But there is the grey area of over-zealous treatment. So you and I can be correct without violating Church teaching.
Tito
“Nurse Tammy - I’d like an ethical treatment of the movie “Million Dollar Baby” please!” In that movie, the lady boxer became a very dependant quadraplegic and clearly she wanted to die. Clint Eastwood eventually disconnected her then went to Confession. I was watching this with my son and it sparked a lively chat afterwords where I told him that I would have been willing to disconnect her vent and I wouldnt go to Confession, in fact, I would feel fine going to Communion afterwords because doing so wasnt wrong.
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We as Catholics have the duty to take reasonable care of ourselves and endeavor to use medical treatment to allow ourselves whatever long and full life we might get, but we are not morally obligated to submit ourselves to overly burdensome treatment that has no reasonable expectation for recovery.
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In that movie, it was clear that the lady boxer considered her condition and its required therapies as an excess burden and it was her right to refuse it. My Advance Directive says such. If a person held the opinion that the treatment wasnt for them a burden then we have the moral obligation to continue to provide it for them.
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When my mom was in an accident, she was on a vent…we kept her on it as she recovered…it was a helpful tool that allowed her body to be maintained while she healed. There are times when people are on vents with hopes of healing and in the course of care it becomes clear that recovery will not happen…eventual removal fron the vent becomes a normal process in the course of care. This happens to everybody from tiny premature babies to old people and everyone in between. It isn’t a “culture of death” thing, its a “limitations of medical science” thing.
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If you every hear of or know of a case where the patient was thought to be dying (and maybe even removed from a vent)and made a miraculous recovery, please dont leap to judgement that for sure the MDs were all incompetants or complcit in some culture of death plot…maybe the person actually DID have a truly miraculous (as in truly defied natural law) as opposed to just beating bad odds. We medical people rejoice in miraculous recovery too, but we cant tell in which case God will intervene to actually suspend natural law and allow recovery that has no rational explanation. Please dont use miracles as a reason to discredit us, were good folks.
“When the doctors ask the father of a “brain dead” to pull the plug on life support in order to get fresh and healthy organs harvested and the father balks while the son comes back to life—fully recovered.”
If something like this happens then either
1) The person wasnt brain dead and the physician was getting ahead of himself having this conversation too early.
2) There was an actual miracle. Praise God.
In most situations, the MD who cares for the patient is NOT the one who asks for a donation, so descriptions of these things happening always sound odd to me. There are checks and rechecks to document actual brain death prior to retrieval of organs usually by more than one MD.
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If one of my loved ones were in this spot, I would insist on every last observable test of brain functioning and then I would pray for a miracle and then ask that the test be done again. If there were still brain death, I would probably allow retrieval of thier organs for transplant. After the people who recieved their organs recovered from the surgeries, I would want to meet them and hug them and thank them for being my miracle.
Fascinating discussion. I hate George Clooney because he’s a hell of a lot better looking than I am. That said, I thought the movie was excellent: well-written, well-acted and very deftly directed. Simcha’s reaction to the deathbed scene surprised me, but each to his or her own. I thought Clooney nailed it, and thought the “last words” were just right. Hallmark? Maybe, but sometimes they get it right, too.
I saw this movie as one that was cleaned up at the end. I know where each character stood and there were no questions left to ask. I know what happened to the land. The movie begins by presenting several conflicts. Each conflict has a solution at the end. It was a very pretty movie and I liked how the main character didn’t kill his comatose wife’s lover. I think some people would dislike it because it only vaguely gives us personal back stories and it offers a reply to each before you realize what has happened. You are either going to like it for it’s subtlety or dislike it because it didn’t have the kind of easy to identify American grit, but it is Hawaii in the background. It’s a fairly laid back sort of place. I think director, author, screenwriter, and actors were trying to convey.
I don’t think you can make swearing cool, but it either seems authentic to the character or it doesn’t. It seemed pretty well authentic to me.
I need to apologize for 1) hijacking this thread and 2) my typo… above, I wrote “very dependent quadriplegic ” when I meant “vent dependent” as in ventilator, sorry for the confusion.
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I actually really liked the deathbed scene. I think the “good bye” that the betrayed husband came up with was rather a nice tribute under the circumstances he was working with.
This movie made such an impression on me that I had to read your entire first paragraph before I remembered what it was about.
On the other hand, Gran Torino is one of my all-time, outstanding, top quality favorites for expressing Catholic values - and everything else a good movie has!
Thank you for articulating what bugged me about this movie. I especially didn’t like the Hallmark speech Clooney delivers to his wife at the end. But the closing scene where he is wordlessly watching TV with his girls under the quilt did get to me a little bit. Yep, the whole thing could have been so much more.
Re: Clooney. He generally disappoints me in terms of his acting (or lack thereof), but I thought he did a great job in Up in the Air. I feel the same way about Hugh Grant. Overrated actor in general but then he went and knocked it out of the park in About a Boy. So much depends on the writing.
I liked this movie alot even though I didn’t expect to.What troubled me is that nowhere-unless I missed it-was there one single reference to faith or religion.Especially troubling in the scene where the hospital counselor talks with the little girl to tell her the mother won’t live.Nothing about an afterlife or anything remotely spiritual in the script that I can remember.
In mid-May George Clooney hosted a $15 million fundraiser for President Obama, the most pro-death US president I can think of to ever occupy the office. Why in the world would a Catholic spend a dime seeing a movie of George Clooney’s, anyway? We Catholics, who tend to be very concerned as to whom we vote for in elections, need to be sure we’re not letting our dollars vote by proxy for things that oppose our consciences. Why give Clooney another cent to spend supporting Obama and the death merchants?
Kind of how I feel about the Catholic Church.
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