The Contenders:
The Artist (winner)
The Descendants
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse
Showing posts with label The Descendants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Descendants. Show all posts
Monday, March 5, 2018
Friday, November 3, 2017
Monday, September 25, 2017
Friday, May 22, 2015
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Trouble in Paradise
Film: The Descendants
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on big ol’ television.
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on big ol’ television.
What I found interesting initially about The Descendants is the setting. The film is set in Hawaii, and it immediately affects how one views the proceedings. That is until George Clooney’s voiceover comes in and tells us it shouldn’t. He says something I never consciously thought of—Hawaii is just a place like any other. Sure, it’s paradise, but people still live and work and die. Things are just as fatal, just as dangerous, just as sad. This is relevant, because as the film starts, we find ourselves in a hospital.
Matt King (Clooney) is a lawyer as well as the sole trustee of a massive land trust inherited from generations back in a direct line from King Kamehameha. The trust runs out in seven years, though, and so the family is considering the sale of their final parcel of land—25,000 acres of pristine beachfront on Kauai. Just as the sale is preparing to go through, King’s wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie, in a role that required her to essentially lie in bed with her mouth open) is in a serious speedboat accident and rendered comatose. We learn early on that this is a permanent situation; she will never recover. Because of her living will, the family pulls the plug and begins saying goodbye.
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