The Descendants
Clooney, George, Lillard, Matthew, Payne, Alexander
Genre: Film
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Annotated by:
- Duffin, Jacalyn
- Date of entry: Aug-15-2012
Summary
The Hawaiian lawyer Matt King (George Clooney) has two big dilemmas. His large, extended family is thinking of selling their inherited 25,000 acres to a developer—and he must help the consortium decide what to do for the benefit of all. Worse, his wife Elizabeth is in a coma on life support following a severe injury from water skiing. He is trying to parent their two daughters, aged 10 and 17, but the girls are unruly and sulky. He thinks that they are acting out because of their mother’s absence.
The doctors tell Matt that Elizabeth will never recover. According to her living will, she does not want to be left on a machine; they must pull the plug. Matt confides in the older daughter who then informs him that Elizabeth had been having an affair. Her sullenness is sublimated anger with her mother for—among other things—how Matt had been treated. Other family friends know of the infidelity and identify the lover as Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard) a real estate agent living on Kaua’i.
Amazed by his wife’s secret, Matt overcomes his sense of betrayal and resolves to respect her feelings, find the lover and give him a chance to say goodbye. The little family flies to Kaua’i looking for Brian and to deal with the sale of the family estate. Matt meets Brian’s beautiful wife Julie– who is sympathetic to his situation, not knowing of the connection with her husband. When Matt confronts Brian, he is surprised that Brian has no interest in saying good-bye to Elizabeth. What, for Elizabeth, had been a life-changing relationship, for Brian, was a fling that “just happened” and which he wants to forget. He is terrified that Julie will discover his infidelity and leave him.
Matt contends that “things do not just happen.” Everything happens for a reason. Wondering what his own role had been in Elizabeth’s reasons for taking part in the affair, Matt goes home for her death. But he also decides not to sell the family estate and keep it as a nature preserve over the opposition of many cousins. Brian never appears, but Julie has learned of his infidelity and she comes to the hospital out of duty and horror. It is not clear if her marriage will survive.
In the final scene, Matt and his daughters are in a little boat off Waikiki where they spread Elizabeth’s ashes.
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Commentary
Although the plot has many soapy aspects, the excellent acting and writing make this film an interesting exploration of several important issues. End-of-life decisions; the impact of severe illness on children; the possibility of deep secrets within marriage.
Matt is well intentioned, but largely passive in his relationships with the entire world. He had left the parenting to Elizabeth, he was oblivious to her unhappiness, he went along with his family’s wishes. Her dying forces him to make active decisions about his personal life – and these actions promise to spill over into his future. Nothing “just happens.”