MESSAGE IN THE MOVIES

The Descendants   Rated R

Directed by Alexander Payne.  Starring George Clooney, Shailene Woodley.

Photo: Searchlight Pictures
Movie Review by Rev. Bruce Batchelor Glader

There are few things more tragic than watching a family member hooked up to life support equipment, unconscious and unresponsive.  For most of the two hours that it takes The Descendants to tell its story, that is exactly where Elizabeth King (Patricia Hastie) remains.  She has been injured in a motorboat accident and lies comatose, surrounded by family and friends in a Hawaiian hospital.

Elizabeth’s husband Matt (Clooney) is trying to hold things together.  For years he has been the “back-up parent”, content to let his two girls be shuttled to and from activities by their mother.  Now he has to reestablish relationships, and that will be difficult.  17-year-old Alexandra (Woodley) needs to be pulled out of the private school where she is drinking and showing contempt for the administration.  10-year-old Scottie (Amara King) has her own issues and humiliates classmates with profanities.  It’s time for Matt to be a father and for the family to make important decisions about how to get by without mom.

Matt also needs to decide what to do about property inherited from his family worth millions of dollars.  A developer is interested and the cousins are hoping to make a deal, but at what cost?

Alexandra also has some news to share with her father about their mother’s past, which is less than stellar.  How do you forgive someone when they cannot respond to you?  Should you forgive?

In real life, the combination of these crises would be more than a person could bear, but The Descendants finds interesting and moving ways to rise above the pain.  This is a leisurely paced and sad story, but the characters are interesting and Matt King is, most of all, a moral person trying to do the right thing while making up for some of his mistakes in the past.  The beautiful Hawaiian locations and the great music on the soundtrack are a bonus.  Forgiveness, redemption and the value of family are virtues well represented in this excellent movie.
       

Pitchfork/Halo Ratings:

Four halos: A thoughtful film about moral choices.

Two pitchforks:Some crude language; infidelity.

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