The Descendants
Dir. Alexander Payne
Year: 2011
Aus Rating: M15+
Running Time: 115mins
I don’t think co-writer/director Alexander Payne always had disdain for women.
Citizen Ruth and
Election didn’t exactly have lovable women at their core, but they were well-rounded, flawed, complex women who were doing what they felt they had to do to survive. In those intervening years – he also directed
About Schmidt and won an Oscar for
Sideways – something must have happened (perhaps his divorce?) because The Descendants is an exercise in why women are such horrible, despicable shrews. When this film isn’t demonising its female characters for daring to be unhappy in their marriage, it’s condescending them for showing too much emotion and even berating them for drinking alcohol. By the time the film’s conclusion rolls about and the rightful masculine presence has been reinstated on this broken family,
The Descendants has long – ahem – descended into an irredeemably dire affair.
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So, basically, I didn't like it. I'm truly flabbergasted that it has trailed such a blaze throughout the US awards season. Or, actually, maybe I'm not all that flabbergasted because
The Descendants fits very comfortably into that safe territory of American "indies" that people seem to wet themselves over. It's easily comparable to titles like
Little Miss Sunshine and
Juno in the way it juggles drama and comedy and can make people feel all warm and cuddly by knowing they're supporting "arthouse cinema", but unlike those films it's actually really, really bad. I didn't have enough words to really discuss some of the other troubling aspects of the film - the weak as piss character development that sees Shailene Woodley's daughter character have a cry in the pool and instantly become daddy's BFF, or the weird way Clooney's character takes his 10-year-old daughter away from her mother who has had her life support turned off and is about to die! - but I think I was able to demonstrate my major qualms with Payne's film.
As for the awards? Well, I don't think it has any right being in the discussion for best picture, director (what whitewashed direction Payne provides!) and screenplay. Clooney is Clooney and while his narration is toxic, he does at least try to enliven the proceedings with a roster of "wacky" faces. Shailene Woodley, looking like a definite possibility for Best Supporting Actress is... well, I can see why because she's quite good and is actually able to forge through with some peaks and valleys, but as the eloquent
Nick Davis recently opined - where, I unfortunately cannot remember - if Academy voters cannot find five better, further reaching supporting female performances from 2011 then they simply are not looking hard enough. She's a gorgeous and talented young actress, so it would be a shame to see her nominated for a role that is so uninterested with itself. The screenplay does nothing for Woodley, who plays the rebellious daughter who got sent away to a reform school. In the grand scheme of things she seems rather docile as teenagers go. Some curse words don't make angst. Ah well. I guess all I can hope for is an
Up in the Air style across-the-board loss ratio by the time Oscar statues are handed out in late February. Oscar loves his women, so why embrace a film that hates them?
