Salina Art Center

“Damn near perfect” is what critic Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine called director Alexander Payne’s long-awaited follow-up to his acclaimed Sideways.  Travers was responding to the excellent ensemble performances, led by George Clooney, but he reserved his highest praise for how Payne “walks the high wire between humor and heartbreak with unerring skill.”  This ability has become a Payne trademark, showcased not only in Sideways but films such as Election and About Schmidt.  Payne knows how to take serious subject matter and inject it with just the right amount of humor—and it’s humor that’s always grounded in reality (even when Payne is at his most satirical, as in Election) and comes naturally from the characters, not the writer or director.  The Descendants is perhaps the director’s greatest risk, however, because it really does skirt closer to tragedy than Payne’s previous films.  Clooney plays Matt King, a successful, workaholic attorney in Hawaii who’s satisfied to be the “backup” parent to his two daughters—until he’s forced into emotional responsibility after his wife is put in a coma by a boating accident.  Matt has three important decisions to make, all with difficult consequences.  The first is whether or not to take his wife off life support, a problem not helped by his wife’s unsympathetic father (Robert Forster).  The second decision is what to do after he’s told that his wife had been having an affair with a married man.  The third decision is whether or not to sell several thousand acres of beautiful, unspoiled land that have been in Matt’s family for generations.  All three decisions come together to enhance the moral and emotional themes of the film, without seeming artificial in their construction.  The only heavy touch might be the protagonist’s name; for not only does Matt’s financial security makes him feel like a king, he actually has a royal lineage (he’s descended from a Hawaiian princess, who “tainted” the family bloodline by marrying a haole, or white person).  Matt King isn’t a study in regal hubris but a fairly decent man whose greatest fault is his complacency, his willingness to let others do the emotional heavy-lifting.  Now he’s forced by life-altering tragedies to take action.  His attempts to make peace with his embittered, grieving children are both humorous and sad, and the film treats his stumbling efforts with genuine sympathy.  King decides to go on a quest: taking along daughters Alexandra and Scottie (plus Alexandra’s stoner boyfriend Sid), he sets out to confront Brian Speer, the real estate agent who was his wife’s ex-lover.  In Sideways, Payne got an unexpectedly poignant performance from Thomas Haden Church, better known for playing a dimwit on the sitcom Wings.  Payne performs some similar alchemy with Matthew Lillard—“Shaggy” in the Scooby Doo movies—here doing exceptional work in the dramatic role of Brian.  But Lillard and Clooney (who won the Golden Globe for Best Dramatic Actor) are just two of the great performances in a cast that includes Beau Bridges, Robert Forster, Judy Greer, and three very talented young actors: Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, and Nick Krause (as Alexandra, Scottie, and Sid, respectively).  It’s easy to say that films with large casts depend on their ensemble acting, but The Descendants really is a team effort, with every performance meshing beautifully.  Payne’s film—which also won the Golden Globe for Best Drama—shows once again why the director is, according to Peter Travers, “a master of the human comedy, of the funny, moving and messy details that define a fallible life.”