Ms. Silver Screen: The Descendants

Remember when everyone loved THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT? Everyone said it was fantastic and amazing and such a beautiful film? Yeah? Well I didn’t care for it one bit. I thought it was way overrated and annoying. THE DESCENDANTS is that movie this year. Everybody loves it. Why? I couldn’t tell you. My best guess is that it has George Clooney in it and everyone is coo-coo for Clooney. That’s fine. But people, you are giving this movie way the hell too much credit.

The story is that Matt King (Clooney) has to try to form some kind of relationship with his two daughters. Daughter Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) is a foul-mouthed little know-it-all who comes home from the facility she stays at for drug and alcohol abuse after her mother is in a boating accident. Her little sister Scottie (Amara Miller) plays the typical annoying kid who I never had the urge to care about even once. When Alexandra comes home, she tells her dad that her mother – who is in a coma that she will never come out of – was cheating on him. The movie tries so hard to make the viewer feel something for this family.

So why didn’t I feel anything for them? Is it because the movie was boring? Maybe it’s because the family has money out the yin yang and they’re doing the pouty feel-bad-for-us thing. I totally get it, the mom is in a coma and that is a real drag, but I feel like attention in the movie is divided somewhat unequally between the mom story and the OTHER story. The story of the huge chunk of land that has just fallen into Matt’s lap as an inheritance. It is some odd amount of acres on the ocean in Hawaii.

So tell me, movie, what is your point here? The family wants Matt to turn the land into a tourist trap and make some money off of it, but Matt is too preoccupied finding the man who his wife was cheating with. The movie is a snoozefest and one that I sincerely could have done without. With all of the fantastic films that came out in 2011, this is the one getting all the buzz at award show season time. It makes no sense to me.

Here’s the bottom line… the movie is not good. I would even go as far as saying that it sucked. It annoys me that whenever George Clooney’s name graces the credits of a film these days that people just stand and applaud. I’m not saying that I don’t like George Clooney. He’s a fine actor and I’m sure a stand-up gent. I’m just saying that I wish viewers would see past this ploy to get attention and sympathy – and awards – and recognize that THE DESCENDANTS isn’t good and if it wins Best Picture at the Oscars I am going to throw myself off the Sears Tower.