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Film reviews

Men In Black 3

It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.

Bel Ami

The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.

The Dictator

A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.

The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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The Descendants (Film)

by Erin Free | January 09, 2012 11:59 | Edited January 09, 2012 12:51

Boasting brilliant performances and Alexander Payne’s dry, perceptive but always humane directorial touch, this gem of a film is likely to end up one of the year’s best.

Few filmmakers can boast the winning streak of Alexander Payne. Sure, he might not be the most prolific director, but right now, everything that he's touched has turned to cinematic gold. Citizen Ruth, Election, Sideways and About Schmidt rival the work of any of the far more fancied of the American auteurs, but Payne's dryness of style, combined with his seeming disinterest in self-promotion, mean that - despite having won an Oscar for his Sideways script - he always feels a little under celebrated. Payne's films are brilliant but not flashy, and in the world of cinema - where it's so often more about the sizzle than the steak - that usually means that the hipsters pass you by. Well, it's their loss. Alexander Payne is one of the modern greats, and his new film, The Descendants, could very well be his best yet.

 

Though a story steeped in anguish and loss, Payne's quietly ribald sense of humour prevents The Descendants from ever dipping towards the maudlin, even as George Clooney's Hawaii lawyer, Matt King, watches with repressed despair as his beloved wife lies in a coma after a boating accident. Straight away, however, Payne (working from a novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings) twists our expectations. In his world, nothing is painted in black-and-white. It is revealed that Matt King's comatose wife was cheating on him, and what appears to be a prickly relationship with his two daughters (Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller) soon turns out to be an affirming one. When they set out to confront their mother's lover, proceedings become even more unpredictable and absorbing.

 

Boasting brilliant performances (Clooney is at his absolute best, while teen Shailene Woodley is a discovery of titanic proportions); a wonderfully tart, tangy but wholly human script; and moments of sob-inducing sadness and fist-pumping positivity, The Descendants is the best kind of filmmaking: honest, funny, perceptive, original and utterly moving. Don't miss it.