90% The Descendants

All Critics (123) | Top Critics (40) | Fresh (111) | Rotten (12)

With so many balls in the air the temptation is to rush from one plot strand to another, but Payne takes the opposite approach. He also captures the complexity of emotional reactions that grief stirs.

It's a lovely, heartfelt character study of common, everyday people trapped on the horns of an uncommon but not unheard-of dilemma.

The latest exhibit in Payne's careful dissection of the beached male, which runs from Matthew Broderick's character in "Election" to Jack Nicholson's in "About Schmidt" and Paul Giamatti's in "Sideways."

This mature, well-acted dramatic comedy is deeply satisfying, maybe even cathartic.

A tough, tender, observant, exquisitely nuanced portrait of mixed emotions at their most confounding and profound -- all at play within a deliciously damp, un-touristy Hawaii that's at once lush and lovely to look at.

A splendid comedy-drama about a father coping with his comatose wife and difficult daughters represents high points for George Clooney and Alexander Payne.

In the hands of writer-director Alexander Payne, Clooney has rarely seemed so much at home.

There are ample opportunities for the film to soak in pathos, righteousness, farce, or pictorialism, and Payne manages to nod at those pitfalls without falling into them.

An emotionally ennobling film that wears its compassion on the sleeve of its ugly Hawaiian print shirts.

Payne displays a knack for both perfect casting and using his lead actor in sometimes unconventional, unexpected ways

Director Alexander Payne prefers to start a movie with one strike against him. He always picks a dislikable protagonist... Then, as he slowly gives characters self-awareness, he gives us reasons to watch and care about them.

In playing an everyman stranded between anger and duty, Clooney earns an emotional payoff that a lesser actor would simply demand.

An introspective and heartwarming film, unafraid to convey its story with pleasing simplicity.

It's Clooney and Woodley's movie, as they become a team before our eyes.

I kept expecting it to get better, but it just sort of did its thing and called it a day.

A family drama whose distinction comes primarily from its nuances and subtleties.

Director and co-writer Alexander Payne again shows the most acute and perceptive understanding of the American psyche of any current director.

Flawless in the still manner it approaches crippling encounters with grief and disgust, dryly expressing the necessary unraveling of a distracted man. The Descendents is simply terrific, profound yet understated.

Payne has a particular skill for making movie stars seem like normal people, and the resolute normalcy of the cast helps to show Hawaii not as a resort paradise, but as a place like any other where people live, work, love, and die.

Payne continues to live up to his name as a wry observer of modern American crises.

Even as Payne's weakest film, The Descendants is still worth seeing

I understand Clooney is playing a detached father and husband, but there's no explanation why a financially well-off man basically without a job has no clue about his wife and children.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_descendants_2011/

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