The Descendants is gorgeously shot and deceptively subversive in the way that it confronts non-native people's co-opting of sacred lands. It won't make you feel bad as you sip a pina colada at a Hawaiian resort, but then again, it might.
George Clooney plays Matt King, a rich lawyer who is a direct descendent of Hawaiian royalty, which makes him executor of a trust that includes hundreds of acres of pristine Hawaiian land that he must sell before the laws dissolve the agreement. Unlike his family of Jimmy Buffett-like cousins, he hasn't lived off the great wealth the trust provided, and he is more than a little conflicted about selling the land for development.
All of this is just a backdrop to what is happening in his life. His wife, Barbara, bored by his lack of attention, began "seizing life" and ended up in a coma from a speedboat accident. Now forced to be a full-time father, Matt doesn't know how to communicate with his younger daughter and has no idea that his older daughter is getting drunk at the pricey boarding school where he sent her to straighten up.
The majority of the film deals with Barbara's imminent death and how to prepare the family and friends, while Clooney's character must additionally deal with a shattering betrayal by his now-comatose wife. Clooney gives a terrific, nuanced performance that is especially heartbreaking when he is left alone in the hospital room with his duplicitous wife and has to make peace with her. He gradually learns through tragic and uplifting events how to reconnect with his daughters and with the great land with which he has been entrusted.
Actress Shailene Woodley, who is best known for her role in The Secret Life of the American Teenager on ABC Family, plays the a tough, wounded daughter who becomes privy to her mother's less-than-admirable behavior in The Descendants. I recently visited with the 20-year-old actress
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