“What do they think? That we’re immune to life?”

I believe it’s obvious enough for me to say that being a 25-year-old male still trying to figure it all out that there are still a lot of things in life that I do not know and haven’t personally experienced. When I go to the cinema and watch a film like The Descendants which is about a man trying to deal with his family pressures in a land deal that would fill everyone’s pocket for the foreseeable future, trying to figure out his daughters that he hasn’t been the most present father to, and also watching his wife die after going into a coma after a boating accident, I feel that saying that my own empathy may just be falling a little bit short as to how I personally end up feeling about the whole situation.

Matt King (George Clooney) has been thrust into the spotlight of his family thanks to two events uncontrolled by himself. The government is forcing his family to liquidate his land family’s inherited land, and with him as the trustee he has the final say as to what to do with said land. His decision can make his entire family wealthy again or leave them all despondent as they’ve become after years of throwing away their inheritance. Also, his wife has entered a coma after a boating accident. She is going to die, which makes Matt have to be the sole parent of his two daughters, Alexandra (Shallene Woodley) and Scottie (Amara Miller) as he tries to get his family through this tragedy. This continually, over the next few days, puts Matt on his toes as he tries to manage his life in a cordial manner.

I’ve come to love these films not because I enjoy seeing people go through trying times but for those cathartic moments as they show their true selves, as in real life it’s very seldom that these things are shown to us.

The true test of a film like this is whether or not we understand our protagonist. He’s the one that at the end of the day we’re supposed to agree with his every decision, no matter how minute. As we watch him go and try and figure out how to handle telling the guy that was driving the boat that put his wife in a coma that, “they’re no hard feelings,” or see him have to grit his teeth as his father-in-law judges his decision to not live off his inheritance and not make his family live a life of luxury rather than a – seemingly – happy life of means, as well as every other decision that we see him make we’re there with him. Gladly Alexander Payne is able to give us that grounded understanding as to Matt’s decision process and keep us on his side which makes us throughout the runtime of the movie not just agree with him but empathize with him to the point where you can feel the difficulty that he works through as he goes around and tells his group of family and friends the news about his wife and that they should all take the time to go and say their goodbyes.

I believe that this movie is a more effective emotionally driven drama than films like 50/50 which dangle the idea of things aren’t going to go so well only to queue you in too quickly that things are going to be okay. For the Kings, things are going to be okay. You know this going in. They’re not going to fall into bankruptcy and even though the loss of their mother/wife is a massive loss, after time they’ll all move on. With that said though, this movie takes us through these few days of not know how or when that time of it being ok will be and that is what makes this movie better than some other films of the same ilk *cough 50/50*.

Rating: 9.5/10