FILM REVIEW: THE DESCENDANTS

Matt King (George Clooney) in The Descendants.

Sharing his Payne

By Don Simpson

Chinos and Hawaiian shirts are normal every day attire for Honolulu lawyer, Matt King (George Clooney). Unfortunately, Matt’s life is not nearly as relaxed as his fashion sense. His wife, Elizabeth (Patti Hastie), is in a coma after a serious boating accident while Matt’s daughters, 17-year-old Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) and 10-year-old Scotty (Amara Miller), are both suffering through rebellious periods of their lives.

After prioritizing his career over his family for the last decade, Matt decides that it is prime time to buckle up and become a better husband and father. But… How? He starts by forging an alliance of sorts with Alexandra — who has been suddenly catapulted into the role of substitute mother for Scottie — which requires Matt to accept her mere-caricature-of-a-stoner-[boy]friend, Sid (Nick Krause) as more than the dumber-than-a-rock idiot he seems to be. It is a tough pill for Matt to swallow but, against all odds, he pulls it off without beating the living shit out of him.

It is not without purpose that Matt’s change of heart towards his family occurs on the eve of his decision on what to do with his family’s 25,000 acres of virgin land on the island of Kauai. Matt and his family might be a-holes, I mean “haoles” (white Hawaiians), but they are also the direct descendants of the House of Kamehameha. Matt and his family have been collecting pitches from several developers; no matter which one Matt — the sole executor of the estate — chooses, the entire family will instantaneously become unfathomably rich.

It is far too predictable what Matt finally chooses to do with the land — though would we really desire any other possible ending? Writer-director Alexander Payne opts to give the audience exactly what they want, opting to turn The Descendants into pure, unfiltered Oscar fodder. Let’s just say that I can already guarantee that my mom will love The Descendants, and not just because she thinks George Clooney is one dreamy motherfucker (my words, not her’s — my mom is a good Catholic woman, while I am obviously not a good Catholic or a woman…though I do find Clooney to be quite dreamy). Clooney’s severely understated performance as a severely undemonstrative character,  who is incredibly bland and undeniably average, is at the absolute heart of The Descendants’s appeal. As Payne did with Jack Nicholson (About Schmidt), Paul Giamatti (Sideways) and Thomas Haden Church (Sideways), he all but castrates Clooney to restrain his performance, leaving him as a mere shell of his formerly entertaining self.

FILM REVIEW: THE IDES OF MARCH

A scene from The Ides of March.

Liberal light

By Don Simpson

A wise man -- a Shakespearean soothsayer, no less -- once warned "beware the ides of March" and writer-director George Clooney co-opts this infamous quote from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar presumably to emphasize (or warn us thereof) the overtly-dramatized events of his film. Clooney could have retained the title of Beau Willimon’s source play, Farragut North, but what fun would that have been?

Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling), a 30-year-old political campaign strategist, has swallowed the proverbial purple Kool Aid of "change" being served up by a progressively-minded idealist whose seemingly uncompromising platform makes President Obama look like a centrist. The mythical Pennsylvania Governor Mike Morris (Clooney) is nothing short of a liberal's wet dream candidate for the United States presidency. He is staunchly pro-choice, pro-same sex marriage and anti-capital punishment; he wants the United States to be completely weened from oil dependency within 10 years, not only to save the environment and jump-start the national economy, but to inflict more damage to foreign terrorists than any military action could possibly wield; he advocates for mandatory national service for high school graduates, which he offsets with free college tuition and health care for all. He even refuses to commit to a religious ideology (his religion: the blessed Constitution of the United States); and the state he currently governs boasts a balanced budget! Hey, Stephen! Don't Bogart the Kool Aid! I wanna chug some too!

The other players (and pawns) of this Shakespearean drama include: Governor Morris' campaign manager, Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman); a seductive young intern, Molly (Evan Rachel Wood); Governor Morris' opponent, Senator Pullman (Michael Mantell); Senator Pullman's campaign manager, Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti); and New York Times reporter, Ida (Marisa Tomei).

Set in a fictional and unspecified time period in which the United States finds itself in a situation somewhat similar to the 2008 presidential campaign (and the campaign poster for Governor Morris bears a remarkable resemblance to the Barak Obama Hope poster designed by Shepard Fairey), The Ides of March does not discuss the politics of whoever the sitting president is; and besides a fleeting mention of an attempt by Republicans to influence the polls in key primary elections in order to get the weaker Democrat candidate nominated, the G.O.P. is rarely mentioned. Heck, even Senator Pullman warrants less than a minute or two of screen time.

Other than some stump speeches by Governor Morris, The Ides of March seems almost apolitical. Also, in choosing to place the narrative during a fictional time period, Clooney drains the story of any political oomph that it might have otherwise possessed. The Ides of March may be a strong (though incredibly traditional) political thriller with an unfathomably talented pool of thespians, but the film is rendered inconsequential and pointless. The only truly cutting political soliloquy is when Governor Morris addresses a question regarding whether he would still oppose the death penalty even if his own wife were murdered (a clever reference to a similar question posed to Michael Dukakis by moderator Bernard Shaw during the October 13, 1988 Presidential debate).

The Ides of March reinforces the belief that politics is nothing more than a dirty game of chess ("get down in the mud with the fucking elephants!"), with players and pawns doing dizzying Dosados as the relentless manipulation and backstabbing causes roles to change in a near-endless series of contrived plot twists that would cause even Shakespeare himself to blush with embarrassment. Compromises are necessary -- so are sex scandals -- and that just means that it is impossible for anyone in politics to remain ethically pure. It all boils down to Clooney's two recommendations for those of you who are interested in entering politics: Beware the ides of March and do not fuck the interns.