The Descendants

American movies like this one come nowadays so seldom that many of us have forgotten that American filmmakers can craft excellent movies that with well-told human stories move viewers to feel all kind of emotions, travel from laughter to tears, and intensively enjoy the trip with great cinematography, many scenes with great framing, good outdoor and indoor compositions plus extraordinary actors performances with a director that masterful puts everything together.

Most surprising is that everything is flawlessly presented that you will be able to forget who is acting and will see the character; yes talking about George Clooney that to me today he is more a celebrity than anything else related to movies, but in this movie absolutely forgot that was watching Clooney and definitively was watching Matt King in all his magnificent contradictory feelings and confusion. Superb performance Mr. Clooney, all the honors you’ll get for this performance are well-deserved.

Have seen a few of Alexander Payne movies but I do believe that this is his best as the most complete and very careful crafted with much care to details in every sense that successfully and quite slowly –for an American film- grabs your attention, holds it and won’t let it go until the very end. Ah! yes I do appreciate the ending that is not sad, not happy and it’s open to personal interpretation, which of course is not typical of American cinema.

Tells the story of a family, father and two daughters, saying goodbye to the mother that went into comma after an accident. That’s the essence of the story but please don’t think that film is sad or a downer as there are situations that surely will make laugh and smile even do, yes there is a moment that tears started to pour from my eyes and no, they were not related to death at all. The story twist is that the mother was cheating and the father was not aware until the older daughter tells him after he pushes her to tell him why she fought with her mother.

Talking about the older daughter is impressive how Shailene Woodley performance as Alexandra King is so compelling especially as all her previous work was mainly done on TV, but this is an actress that I’m sure we will start to watch more often in the big screen and only hope she doesn’t go too much for the commercial movies route. Sigh.

If you ask me I think film could win Oscar and if does, will be extremely well-deserved as is a very complete cinematic experience and a rarity –nowadays- in American Cinema; yes, I do recommend film as must be seen for many that read the blog and for adults that enjoy well-crafted cinema.

Big Enjoy!!!

Watch trailer @MOC