The Descendents - a great George Clooney movie

I just saw the film, The Descendents, starring George Clooney. When the film began, I didn't see where the title had anything to do with the story, but after watching it for a while, I began to understand and I like the title for this movie. It is about "the descendents" in several ways.

This movie is just about life, and life can be so complicated sometimes, as some of us know, and different aspects of life can impact one another without anyone realizing it. That is what this quirky movie is about. Quirky, but at the same time a love story, not only between a husband and wife, but also between a father and his two daughters. I highly recommend seeing this movie and I believe George Clooney, highly underrated and underestimated as an actor in Hollywood, deserves an Academy Award, an Oscar, for his performance in this film.

Yes, gorgeous George does deserve an Oscar for his performance in this film. The film does not evolve around his good looks, but rather the emotional journey he embarks on when his wife is left in a vegetative coma after a tragic boat accident, and he is told she had been having an affair with another man at the time of the accident, from, no less, his own college-age daughter.

He begins in the film as the haphazard, missing in action husband, who has seen the error of his ways in his neglected marriage when his wife lingers in a coma in the hospital following the boating accident. He is put on a guilt trip by his snipping father-in-law who feels his daughter deserved more in this marriage to gorgeous George. George believes this boat accident is a wake-up call for him to become the involved, loving husband he should have been to his wife and quietly promises to himself and his wife that he will mend his ways and be the better husband when she awakes from the coma.

But, instead, the wife deteriorates and the doctors inform George she will never come out of the coma, there is no hope for her, and that her living will wishes of being unhooked from the life support keeping her alive will have to happen in a few days. What I liked so much about this film is that it does NOT become the heroic efforts of the husband and children to get mom to respond and wake-up out of the coma, nor does it become a "right to life" stand and court battle a la Terri Shiavo, to keep the feeding tube and breathing apparatus intact. Instead, it is an honest portrayal of a family, husband and two daughters, aged 10 and 17, dealing with the emotions of losing a wife and a mom in a few days and dealing with the knowledge of the affair she was having at the time of the accident.

Also, intertwined in this story is a subplot, of George and his cousins in the process of making a deal to sell their land holdings in Hawaii, quite considerable and virgin Hawaiian land, left to them in a trust by their "descedents", a wealthy and prominent Hawaiian family. George's journey in coming to terms with his wife's inevitable death and the knowledge of her affair, of course, affect his decision in what to do with the large parcel of land put in his trust from his "descendents."

And, of course, the two daughters, "the descendents", of George and his wife, how will they fare in this sad and tragic situation? How will they deal with their feelings of love, anger, and hate that their mother was having an affair at the time of the accident and their father had no clue? George and his two daughters have to sort out all their feelings and emotions and at the same time bond to one another in spite of their grief, anger and love, which they hadn't done in a long time.

George Clooney's emotional range in this movie is compeling and intriguing. The succinct facial expressions when he is told by his eldest daughter his wife had been having an affair are amazing. The audience can read the hurt and pain in George's eyes as he realizes he has been betrayed by his beautiful wife and didn't even have a clue. And, the humiliation at being told by his own daughter, is written all over his face. To be able to convey those emotions so subtlely through his eyes and facial expressions is Oscar worthy.

The audience watches George emotionally grow and mature through his relationships with his two daughters. At the beginning of this tragic situation, he barely knows his two daughters, both of whom are acting out because of the knowledge of their mother's tragic accident and the knowledge of her affair. Over a few days time, father and daughters bond and grow in love, trust, and loyalty to one another in dealing with their tragedy. And, remarkably, George grows in his love for his absent wife, so that when the inevitable occurs, he can live with himself and has made peace with himself.

George Clooney's emotional range in this movie story is incredible and one of the finest performances I've seen in him. It is so refreshing to see a movie without, violence, car chases, car crashes, buildings blowing up, and graphic sex. This is just a love story of a man for his wife and daughters under tragic situations and surprising discoveries all wrapped up in the beautiful, senusous Hawaii as the backdrop for this film. The emotional range George Clooney shows in this film is Academy Award, Oscar worthy.