The Descendants vs Beginners

The Descendants begins with a shot of Matt’s wife, laughing as the wind blows through her hair. She’s on water skis. We hear, throughout the movie, that she’s a daredevil who loves extreme sports. I gathered from this that she’s also a lover of life, but that’s an assumption never confirmed. Matt’s wife is in a coma, from a boating accident. Everyone keeps telling Matt they know she’s going to be okay, and he just smiles and nods and thanks them.

Matt (George Clooney) lives in Hawaii, but as he narrates, it’s not a peaceful, luau-having existence. Hawaii’s islands are populated by winners and losers alike, by the laid-back and the stressed-out. There are surely any number of citizens eager to surf and drink mai tais with you, but Matt isn’t one of them. He’s too busy. Matt is a lawyer, and also in charge of his family’s large inheritance of as-yet non-commercial land. In a few days, he will cast the final vote on whether it will be sold as resort land, or if he will preserve it (the former makes his entire extended family quite rich). He also has to decide when his wife will die.

In the brief meantime, he has to keep his cool long enough to deal with two daughters he barely knows. Scottie (Amara Miller) is a pre-teen troublemaker (her first scenes involve begrudgingly apologizing to another kid for some low-grade bullying). Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) is in her late teens, and thus a pro troublemaker. She attends a private school on a different island, and spends her free time drinking, taking drugs, wearing a tiny bikini, and generally making Matt nervous that he won’t be able to effectively single-parent. One of the surprises of The Descendants is that Alexandra steps up to help Matt look after Scottie. She’s always sarcastic, rebellious, and potentially danger-prone, but Alexandra is obviously smart and compassionate too. I liked her a lot, thanks to Woodley’s smart, authentic performance. Alexandra is never wise beyond her years, or some movie wild-child. Chances are, she’s like a teenager you know (or like the teenager you were, or knew when you were a teenager). Woodley is currently also on The Secret Life Of The American Teenager, which looks terrible. Even if it’s not, I’m guessing Woodley’s the best part of it, because she damn near steals The Descendants. Wading around a leaf-strewn swimming pool, Alexandra gets bad news, and goes under, until she’s processed the information, dealt with it, and composed herself. Find another actress her age that can go through the five stages of grief while holding her breath.

Before her accident, Alexandra and her mother had been fighting. For a time, we, and Matt, think this will be one of the conflicts that will need to be resolved before the movie (and the mother’s life) is over, and an insight into Alexandra’s anger. This is true, but the conflict actually centers around Matt, and his marriage, and some new information compels Matt into action. His wife had lived a life of excitement and danger, and now Matt is the one taking risks, running headlong into confrontations, demanding answers and plotting revenge. The Descendants is a rare movie that becomes funnier and sadder simultaneously. The same can be said of Clooney’s performance, one of the best this year. As Matt gets closer to his decisions, he’s faced with one difficult conversation after another, from the hilarious (Alexandra’s buddy Sid tags along on a family trip, and provides running stoner commentary) to the tense (anything involving Matt’s father-in-law, played by Robert Forster), to the downright strange (an ambushed kiss on a porch).

The Descendants is the newest movie by Alexander Payne. Besides the best ten minutes of Paris, je t’aime, it’s his first movie since Sideways. I’m not sure what exactly caused the delay, but he hasn’t missed a beat. The Descendants continues his streak of cleverly unfolding, dark comedies. George Clooney is the biggest star yet in one of Payne’s movies, but he also gives one of the most graceful, human performances. He’s in good company. The Descendants is completely cast, to the smallest parts. Surfer Laird Hamilton is a friend of Matt’s wife; Beau Bridges is the cousin with the biggest stake in Matt selling the land; and Judy Greer and Matthew Lilliard turn up as a couple that introduces a third decision Matt must tackle. How he handles them gives The Descendants extra depth, and Matt’s parenting skills a vote of confidence. The last two scenes of the movie, both featuring Matt and his daughters, show us major and minor moments in their lives, each handled beautifully. A lot of play is given to Matt being a descendant of Hawaiian royalty, but it’s clear the title refers just as much to the girls on his couch.

Beginners also deals a small family on the verge of losing a member, with the same strategy of humor in the face of tragedy. Most of the conflicts of The Descendants are internalized in Beginners, replaced on the surface with a burgeoning romance, quirkier stylistic choices, and the best dog actor ever.

The dog. You guys, the dog. I can’t even.

Ewan McGregor is Oliver, a thirtysomething graphic designer. Oliver narrates that after his mother died, his father, Hal (Christopher Plummer), came out of the closet. And instead of it being an end-of-life revelation that fills a movie with pathos and other, darker buried secrets, Hal begins a new chapter, full of fun and friendship and love. Beginners toggles between Hal’s days with his new circle of friends, his first boyfriend (Goran Visnjic), and his newfound activism, and the time following his death, when Oliver tries to move forward, missing a father he was just getting to know, and adjusting to life with a new dog (Hal’s beloved Arthur), and girlfriend (Melanie Laurent).

Beginners, like The Descendants, mixes the light and dark, but with the central mystery out of the way, it can be lighter sooner, and more often. Oliver’s narration is often accompanied by his illustrations, or photos of his family, or historical events from various eras involving his parents. Arthur, a Jack Russell Terrier, speaks to Oliver (he’s not voiced by an actor, thankfully, but is given subtitles), and serves as a tiny, sweet, Greek chorus. Arthur can’t stand being alone, and whines if Oliver leaves him with a sitter. At one point, he asks, “Are we married?” I may or may not have talked to Arthur some during the movie. Occasionally, we get flashbacks from deeper in the past, with a younger Oliver and his mother (Mary Page Keller). These scenes are peculiar, if entertaining. Oliver’s mother was a free spirit, possibly unstable, who treated him as a friend more than a son. I was taken with these scenes, and especially with the performance of Mary Page Keller, but they raised more questions than they answered, and weren’t the source of anything set in the present day. Ultimately, Beginners has a lucky problem on its hands, since the flashbacks bring Oliver into richer focus, in a story that would otherwise be dominated by his father.

Beginners is a fine film, emotional leaps and bounds beyond director Mike Mills’ last fiction film, Thumbsucker (although that movie has its charms too). Besides the novel bit of casting Christopher Plummer and Ewan McGregor as father and son, there’s an urgency to Beginners that I didn’t expect. Oliver’s narration often references the past and present in the same breath. Oliver, as well as The Descendants’ Matt, can tell you: life feels that fast anyway.

The Descendants: A

Beginners: A-