Eng 225 Film Critique: the Descendants

  Film Critique: The Descendants

Jason Payne

ENG225

Professor Fawn vonFrohling

3 Jun 12

The Descendants is a story of a modern family facing real issues, the same issues that America does not like to talk about. How we handle these issues is what defines us. Lets take a deeper look at this film through a formalist approach. Analyzing the storytelling, acting, cinematography, editing, sound, directing, impact on society and Genre. Let’s start with storytelling.

Every movie begins with a story (Goodykoontz,Jacobs, 2011, Sec. 2.1) and The Descendants is no exception. The Descendants is adapted from the 2009 novel of the same name written by Kaui Hart Hemmings. It is a romantic comedy that takes place on the islands of Oahu and Kauai in Hawaii. It follows Honolulu lawyer Matt King (George Clooney) as he responds to an array of very real problems. At first, The Descendants looks to be a one-dimensional film on how family copes with loss, but it soon becomes clear that it is so much more. In addition to the imminent death of his wife, Elizabeth King (Patricia Hastie), several other conflicts soon come to light.

Matt deals with multiple external conflicts throughout the film. After his wife’s accident, he sets off to reunite with his daughters. He soon realizes that reconnecting with his unruly younger daughter Scottie (Amara Miler) and self-destructive older daughter Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) is not going to be as easy as he thought. In the process of reuniting with his daughters, he finds out that his wife is having an affair behind his back. With this new knowledge, he sets off on a mission with kids in tow to track down and confront his wife’s lover. Although external conflict dominates the film, internal conflict helps bring depth.

Matt and his cousins are set to sell a large piece of family land on Kauai, which he also happens to be the sole decision maker on. Matt plans on siding with the majority vote, but later discovers that his...