Big Screen Peter: The Descendants

The Descendants is far from perfect. Much like the family it depicts, The Descendants is pockmarked with lulls and awkward moments.

Yet these imperfections do little else but varnish the whole to a greater sheen. This may seem a paradoxical statement, but we are most tangible and real in moments of vulnerability. Perfection is off-putting and unattainable whereas vulnerability speaks to a commonality, a shared experience.

With The Descendants, the audience is treated to a web of experience. But it's more than the story of a rich man, his dying wife, and his maladjusted daughters. The story is a tangled mass of connections. Each piece reaches out in unexpected ways. It's messy and deep rooted.

And there is no better person to center such an alternately personal and expansive story than George Clooney. Playing Sam King, the well-to-do scion of a wealthy Hawaiian family, Clooney underlays a successful WASP provincialism with the laid-back charm of a lifetime islander. His cloistered existence is broken by a boating accident that puts his wife on life support.

What unfolds from this initial catalyst is less a story about who Sam is or even was, but one about what Sam has missed. His daughters are foreign entities. Even before the accident, his relationship with his wife was adrift. In this way, The Descendants isn't exceedingly unique. It very easily could have turned into a contrived tale, one where Person A finds himself and is able to reconnect with XYZ.

Through deprecatory humor and a keen eye for realism, a greater path is forged. Sam, on his tangential, almost Quixotic journey toward personal confrontation is able to find a greater meaning in his path. Strange and uncomfortably awkward as his quest may be, it forges a connection with the daughters once feared lost. But more than that, he reaches a greater understanding of himself and the responsibilities of his position as the scion and trustee of a Hawaiian lineage.

While the redemption model might be an inescapable entity, The Descendants is able to humanize the varied characters that populate the movie.

Alexandra moves from desultory teen daughter toward a more fully actualized person, while her friend Sid — seemingly inserted into the narrative solely as quirky comic relief — is awarded a path almost as plaintive as Sam himself. Even Sam's curmudgeonly father-in-law, so quick to cast aspersions and blame, is granted a moment of redemptive grace.

This ability to humanize all aspects of a complex and tangled affair separates The Descendants, making it truly worthy of its nomination for Best Picture.

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