The Descendants

Directed by Alexander Payne

***

The actor George Clooney has gotten “better and braver as he’s aged,” said Andrew O’Hehir in Salon.com. In this “gentle, witty” new comedy-drama from the director of Sideways, the normally suave star plays a Honolulu lawyer who’s finally forced by family tragedy to act more like an adult, and his understated performance puts him in the running to be “collecting gold figurines during the cold-weather months.” The one big emotional scene this story gives him “will break you down if you have any heart.” It’s not easy at first to accept Clooney as the disconnected workaholic he’s supposed to be as the film opens, said David Edelstein in New York. But when a waterskiing accident puts his wife in a coma and he must share the news with his two daughters and then family and friends, “there’s a sweaty desperation to his attempt to put things right that’s both amusing and unbearably sad.” The screenplay is prone to “shameless crowd-pleasing” at moments when we hope for something deeper, said Noel Murray in the A.V. Club. But the movie’s setting helps: This is backstage Hawaii, and its “distinctive flavor” gives every scene a welcome tang.

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