The other night, I saw one of the most widely acclaimed movies of the year, “The Descendants.” It’s got a 90% “fresh” rating from Top Critics on rottentomatoes.com. It’s been hailed by most of the major critics, and The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern calls it “the movie of the year.” And I hated every minute of it.

I am not alone in my opinion — two friends, whose informed opinions I trust, agree with me — but we are vastly outnumbered by the people on the bandwagon. I’ve been on the smaller side of critical opinion plenty of times, but I honestly can’t understand the praise for this film, not for the writing, the direction, the acting — none of it. Here are a few key points I feel compelled to make:

1. Theoretically, George Clooney’s character has drifted from his wife and family because he’s been so wrapped up in his business. I see no evidence of this in the movie. There is exactly one scene of him at his office. Here’s what we see:  He’s eating his lunch out of a Tupperware container at this desk. Yes, there are papers on his desk — but the phone doesn’t ring, no one is on hold, there are no clients waiting, and there’s no general clamor of industry. How does a dramatist signal “busy”? By showing such things. Instead, he’s just eating, and reading. The rest of the movie he seems similarly unrushed. If he’s been so busy, and we don’t see anyone else but an assistant at his legal practice, what’s going on with all those cases while he takes days at a time off to handle whatever business seems to — slowly — unfold in this movie? I don’t believe anything about George Clooney’s character, because I don’t see any evidence of reality behind it.
2. The young actor Nick Krause has gotten praise for his portrayal of a character named Sid, a guy who is some sort of surfer dude who tags along with the Clooney character’s daughter. Sid is not a character; he is an agglomeration of cute bits. At first he seems a clueless stoner — laughing at the old lady with Alzheimer’s — but in the middle of the night, when Clooney conveniently needs someone to talk to, we find that Sid is a sensitive young man whose father just died. The character flits between being Sean Penn in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and the too-earnest high schoolers in “The Breakfast Club,” mixed in with what passes for wisdom by supporting characters in feature films.
3. Here’s a dead giveaway about how clumsily the film is made. The first third of the film is heavy-handedly narrated by George Clooney, as he mopingly reads some excruciatingly on-the-nose voiceover that tells you more than you’d ever want to know. Mentally, I kept crossing all this out and recasting those early scenes with a new, invented friend for Clooney — someone he can, y’know, discuss things with. I guess the director and his screenwriters finally latched upon the same idea, because as other characters enter the film, the voiceover ends. Abruptly. Like the door on a steel cage slamming shut. So:  first third of the movie is narrated; last two-thirds have no narration. That’s clumsy, bad storytelling. Either we’re being told the story, or we aren’t. Instead, we’re in two movies:  one narrated (badly), and the other depicted (uninterestingly).
4. The trailer has been edited to make you believe this is a comedy. It isn’t a comedy. Or, if it is a comedy, it’s a comedy with no humor. Here’s how you know a comedy:  people in the theatre laughing. When I saw it, there was none of that.
5. The film is lacking in urgency, in story, and in high stakes. Part of the action deals with a large family land trust that must be dissolved; what will Clooney’s character and his family do with all that land, and that potential wealth? I don’t know, because the situation is remarkably lacking in facts. Instead, we get an endless long shot of the cay that will soon house condos and a golf course. That’s no substitution for people pressing their agendas.

I could go on about this — and have, in person, with other people (and, at times, with myself, narrating in my head Clooneyesque, but with a stronger sense of urgency) — but why would I do that? It’s because I’m still trying to figure two things out:  1) why all the acclaim; and 2) what has happened to Alexander Payne? “Sideways” and “Election” were terrific small-life movies, completely the opposite of this film. It’s difficult to reconcile those two satisfyingly funny and wrenching movies with this dud. Yes, everyone has an off day, but judging from “The Descendants” it’s difficult to believe that this writer-director once had an on day.

I do have one more thing to say:  Not every novel should be a movie. I haven’t read the novel, but I know that Payne did, and that he tries to be as faithful in his adaptations to the source novel as possible. In this case, I’m betting that that’s the key mistake. If the narration was lifted from that novel, it shouldn’t have been, and if Clooney’s character has no friends in that section of the novel — to show how isolated he is — then either we needed a different way to show that, or he needed to gain a friend for the movie.

If you see “The Descendants” and are with the critical mainstream on this, please comment. I’m curious to see your reply. If you haven’t seen it… you’ve been warned.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 4th, 2011 at 7:05 pm and is filed under On seeing, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.