The Descendants (2011)

Oh, how I love this movie. I was extremely lucky to see this movie the night the Golden Globes aired, about five nights ago, and then I went and watched my DVR’s recording of the performance. Ricky Gervais was amazing, but this isn’t a review of the Golden Globes. This is a review of easily one of the single most outstanding and perfect films of 2011, The Descendants. Based off of the novel of the same name, this film is directed by Sideways and About Schmidt director Alexander Payne, who also wrote the script with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (who plays Dean Craig Pelton on Community, a show that you need to be watching, and if not, just have your TV on when it’s on so the Nielsen ratings can be higher and we can have more seasons of the show). It stars George Clooney, Shailene Woody, Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard (he still exists?), Beau Bridges, and Amara Miller, and is about as close to a perfect film you can get in 2011. George Clooney plays Matt King, a Honolulu-based lawyer who is the sole trustee of a very large property in the middle of Hawaii, which means it is the single nicest place ever filmed that’s not New Zealand. In seven years, the trust will expire due to the rule against perpetuities, so he and his many cousins (one of which is Beau Bridges) plan to sell the land to a man named Don Holitzer. But I’ll get to him later. But just before they are about to finish the deal, Matt’s wife, Elizabeth, was just in a boating accident, which rendered her comatose, and they find out that she is gonna stay that way. What further complicates this entire thing is Matt’s two daughters, the 17-year-old sort-of-recovering-alcoholic/druggie (absolutely wonderfully played by Shaielene Woody) and the 10-year-old foul-mouthed Scottie (Amara Miller), who has some wonderful bits which just exposes how psycho-censored America is (side note: SOPA IS OFFICIALLY NOT GONNA PASS AS OF TODAY! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!). These two are trouble enough, but with Matt being the only parent around, his wife in a coma, and the land having to be sold, any person would have trouble keeping his head above water. But then the bombshell is released. Elizabeth was cheating on Matt, and he finds out from his daughter while she’s in a coma. That can be stressful, and here we have a situation that actually shows what a real person would do under all this stress, which is what I really love about this film. It’s funny, sweet, dramatic, dark, and truly heartbreaking at points. There is a scene in here where Robert Forester actually punches a teenager in the face, which is awesome, and there are also a lot of extremely depressing scenes in here, a truly saddening movie for the modern generation. Just about everything is perfect about The Descendants, and it one of the movies you have to see this year. Yes. You. You need to go see this movie, and bring all your friends to see it. But seriously-since when did Matthew Lillard come back from the dead?
9.5/10