The Descendants

Alexander Payne has written and directed films (Sideways, About Schmidt) about men at unique crossroads in life and coming to grim, sobering realizations that cause a reevaluation of the past and an uncertain future. In The Descendents, he focuses on a man's family dealing with grief and the hidden truths that threaten to tear it apart. George Clooney is outstanding as a naïve husband and father who must confront life after a terrible series of events.
A water skiing accident in Hawaii has left a woman in a coma and her husband/lawyer, Matt (George Clooney), grief stricken and stunned by the news that she was having an affair with another man. It seems that everyone knew about the affair but Matt who was too busy with his work to even notice, and he must come to terms with it and rebuild his family. Matt's daughters are a troubled ten year old Scottie (Amara Miller) and his older teen, Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) who has a spacy boyfriend, Sid. As the family realizes that their mom may never recover, they must make some major decisions, and Matt must find the truth even if it means confronting the man who stole her heart. Meanwhile, Matt, as the primary trustee for the extended family, has an impending major land sale he must decide upon that could be a financial windfall for his relatives. Determined to meet his wife's lover, Matt does some detective work and, with some help from his daughters, finally arranges to meet the object of his obsession which causes him to reassess his own life and his relationship with his daughters.
This is Clooney's film all the way, and he gives a thoroughly convincing portrait of a man betrayed and oblivious to his wife and his family. He is not the handsome, dashing Clooney of Oceans 11 or Ides of March but rather an unglamorous fellow who is vulnerable. The pain and realization he emotes is heartfelt. Woodley lends excellent support as the knowing daughter who helps her father's quest.
Through much of the story you wonder if Matt will exact some kind of revenge on the creep or do something impulsive. That bit of tension only adds to an engaging plot. In the end, Matt does the right things and brings closure for his family. The final shot is great as Matt tries to become a dad again to his girls. A major subplot involving the land deal gets even more complicated as surprising information is revealed when Matt investigates his wife's lover. There are occasional moments of hilarity as when Matt is at the end of his rope and resorts to asking Sid for advice. It is a riot of a moment.
There are good details which add to our understanding of Matt's family including his cranky father-in-law (Robert Forster) and a mother-in-law who has Alzheimer's disease. What is special about a film like this is that each major character evolves through events and changed to a degree by the end (including spacy Sid). That marks good character development. These are not cardboard caricature but fully etched individuals with weaknesses like anyone, and our initial impressions about each are dispelled by film's end.
The Hawaiian scenery is gorgeous but never used as a travelogue. It merely sets the scene as did the wineries in Sideways and in some ways, the tropical paradise serves as counterpoint to the despair and angst that Matt must endure.
You could imagine a Broadway version of this story since it relies more on characters and situation. The film makes you care for and sustain interest in the main characters (brought to life by a strong cast) and what happens to them. In the end, there is sadness and regret but also hope, the kind of hope that strengthens and bonds a family.

Up In the Air

It's possible that "Up in the Air," a comedy about the soul-deadening challenges of our disconnected era, could only have been made by Jason Reitman. After all, he turned teen pregnancy into amusing family fare ("Juno") and rendered tobacco lobbyists likable ("Thank You for Smoking"). So perhaps it's no surprise that he's come out with a lovely Hollywood romance that floats buoyantly along on a sea of sadness.

George Clooney is perfectly attuned to Reitman's tack, adding just a hint of a bruise to his slickly confident executive, Ryan Bingham. Ryan's job is to relieve others of theirs, and he flies around the country firing anonymous employees so their cowardly bosses won't have to do it instead.

But his own employment is threatened when his CEO (Jason Bateman) hires young go-getter Natalie (Anna Kendrick). She suggests Ryan's job could be done via video conferencing, which would ground him for good.

For Ryan, life on the road is the ideal existence. He gets first-class treatment everywhere, and never has to deal with the inconveniences of commitment. But as he faces increasing challenges to his solitary routine, including a relationship with another high flyer (Vera Farmiga), he's forced to wonder if it's finally time to put down roots.

Though the movie is based on Walter Kirn's 2001 novel, Reitman trades Kirn's caustic madness for a wry melancholy that better suits the screen. This version also incorporates our recessionary anxieties, but offers such a smooth ride we barely notice the turbulence until we're back on the ground.

A few scenes are overly broad or abrupt, and Kendrick works a bit too hard to compose her character. But Reitman handles the majority of elements--from big themes to tiny details--with a skillful blend of empathy and wit.

As for Clooney, an unexpected vulnerability deepens his natural charisma, while Farmiga turns out to be his onscreen soulmate. They create a connection that looks familiar, but is miles away from the rom-com relationships we've been trained to accept. It feels real, and in this prefab world, that's a rare commodity indeed.


By Elizabeth Weitzman at NYDailyNews.com

Read the original article here

Michael Clayton

Getting a second theatrical release in time for the Oscars, MICHAEL CLAYTON (MC) is well worth the effort of getting out of your house and into your local movie theater. A gripping, intelligent thriller about what can happen when a killer shark lawyer grows a conscience, MC boasts one of George Clooney's most powerful performances to date, as well as a stark, sleek, stunning directorial debut for screenwriter Tony Gilroy.
It's late at night, and everyone working at a major law firm in New York is there to settle some fundamental issues. Only one person is missing: he is somewhere else, handling another problem and then going back home. He stops on the way to look at the landscape and possibly think about what he has achieved. All of a sudden, his car blows up, leaving him alive by miracle.
Such a prologue would suggest this is the latest spy movie, right? Wrong. We're talking about a legal drama, a slow-burning thriller that allows George Clooney to show his darker side again after his wounded, Oscar-winning turn in Syriana. The former ER star has always favored socially relevant pictures over blockbusters, using his earnings from crowd-pleasers like Ocean's Eleven or Spy Kids to make sure Good Night, and Good Luck, among others, got made. By his own admission, Ocean's Thirteen, which wasn't bad, was on his schedule just to grant Michael Clayton the financial backing it needed. Was it worth it? Yes.
The man the title refers to, the guy Clooney portrays, is the same person whose car explodes. The film subsequently moves back in time, showing the events that led to the attempt on Clayton's life. It all has to do, apparently, with his peculiar job: Michael is a fixer, one who erases and constructs evidence, keeping clients out of jail and earning his boss Marty (Sydney Pollack) a load of cash. This time, he has been asked to take care of a fellow "garbage man", Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson): he was supposed to make sure everything went smoothly in an important case involving U/North, a chemical company, but all of a sudden he has taken the opposite side, starting to gather proof against U/North and behave bizarrely (stripping in public, for instance); this situation is a pain in the neck for Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), the company's legal adviser, and for Marty, neither of whom can afford to let this matter go awry. Enter Clayton, whose task is to talk some sense into Arthur and get things back on track. As the days pass, however, Michael gets increasingly concerned about his future, wondering whether what he has been doing so far is the right thing.
The legal world is a messy one, something we already knew thanks to John Grisham (referenced in the casting of Pollack, who directed The Firm). Michael Clayton, however, is not based on one of his works, but is the original creation of first-time director Tony Gilroy, who reportedly got the idea for the movie while doing research for his The Devil's Advocate screenplay. Given the quality of the latter, it's hard not to expect the same from Clayton. Alas, the great writer's lack of experience behind the camera shows in the first half-hour, as he struggles to find the right pace for his story: after the shocking introduction, the film proceeds quite slowly, offering tons of information and dialogue but little time to process the whole thing. Considering Gilroy wrote the breathless Jason Bourne movies, such stiffness is confusing. He also makes the mistake of giving his protagonist an excessively tragic background: one subplot about the guy's family is all right, three or four is taking it way too far.
Once the explanatory bits are out of the way, though, the plot starts to flow more easily, allowing the characters to really interact instead of just sitting down and listening to some monologue about what's happening and why it's bad. Wilkinson, who has the most difficult role to play, delivers a competent performance, although no mention of his previous deeds makes his "redemption" a bit hard to swallow. Pollack, in a part he could do in his sleep (see his similar work in Changing Lanes), discards clichés and goes for a sincere, believable characterization. Outranking them both is Swinton, whose purely British depiction of subtle yet tormented evil finds its match only in Clooney's painful intensity: fearlessly playing Clayton as he is meant to be shown (a cynical, calculating scumbag with a serious gambling addiction), he sets aside his trademark charms and conveys real sadness, doubt and ambiguity. Only in one scene does he let his movie star persona emerge, and that he manages to do so without ruining the picture's tone confirms his status as one of the smartest actors working in Hollywood.
While you can watch this movie and see a good story develop, the story makes an interesting shift. The people become the story once the initial story has laid to bare the reason for the peoples' existence.
I enjoyed it for that very reason. The characters were all extremely interesting thanks to great performances by everyone. Clooney, Wilkinson, Pollack and especially Tilda Swinton(White Witch from Narnia) - I am in love with her acting ability. I will be doing some back-tracking to catch up on what I have missed from her. In Narnia, she was deliciously evil and in Clayton, she couldn't be any worse at being evil, but that was her character. It was fun to watch how she made weakness such a strength.
Wilkinson is such an all around great actor and makes his character seem lovable although pitiful and downright nasty for reasons I won't bring up here. Wilkinson definitely delivers.
Clooney provided the best performance in a long time. I think Clooney has long been an interesting performer but this role is just one of his best - dedicated, sometimes mysterious, loving and charming; even funny and sad.
You may look for more in the story line but you may miss the best part if you don't accept that the people are the story once the movie gets rolling.