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Released on November 18th, and earning almost eight times its estimated 18-million-dollar
budget, this comedy-drama film directed by Alexander Payne not only does a great job
of highlighting the beautiful landscape of Hawaii, it's also, surprisingly the only Best
Picture nominee that takes place entirely in present-day.
George Clooney stars as a man forced to grapple with the discovery that his dying wife was
having an affair shortly before becoming comatose. Exhibiting an immensely emotional performance,
Clooney reunites with his estranged children in an attempt to uncover the truth about his
wife's secrets. This is dramatic and moving film when it needs to be, yet quirky and amusing
at other times. The light-hearted approach to a rather serious and personal problem helps
"The Descendants", but not enough to make it truly deserving of the tiny gold statue.
There's few flaws in this adeptly made motion picture... the cinematography is engrossing
and beautiful, the writing is raw and believable, the characters brought to life by some tremendous
performances: but something is decidedly missing to make this a truly great film. It does earns
points for bucking the Oscar trend by actually setting its story in 2011, without any gimmicks
or overly artsy techniques. "The Descendants", "Emotional discovery, beautifully shot, acted".
Here's what you thought about this film in the YouTube comments.
Now, the rate-o-matic to score "The Descendants", an EIGHT and A NINE. Once again scoring just
slightly higher than I did, you thought this was a very well made film with some tremendous
performances from the entire cast, you thought it was awesome. In a field of the "best pictures"
of the year, it unfortunately will take more than amazing acting to really stand-out, I
thought the movie was great.