The Descendants

I'm not sure why I felt like watching The Descendants. A film about a husband finding out his comatose wife (who is about to be taken off life support) was cheating on him, is not normally the sort of thing I'd use to pass the time. I suppose I was curious to see what direction the film would go with that. What would George Clooney's character do when he finally meets the guy.

I'm pretty sure that was missing the point. I think it's supposed to be about everything that happens as he searches. The need to go and inform other loved ones that Elizabeth's going to die soon. He ends up spending a lot of time with his two daughters while he searches for the guy (the older one, played by Shailene Woodley, is actually who told him about the affair), which is naturally important. There's a whole subplot about some land on one of the islands (the film takes place in Hawaii) that he and a lot of other people own through a trust, and they're preparing to sell it, and Clooney's character has final say. So he's trying to decide what to do there (though I think that was kind of telegraphed partway through).

That stuff was all there, but I noticed most of it with a detached feeling. I really was just watching for the confrontation between Clooney and Elizabeth's lover. So once you factored in commercial breaks, I got pretty frustrated waiting for that to happen. It's like yes, Clooney is gradually realizing the challenges ahead of him as a single father. Yes, he's gradually acknowledging he took Elizabeth for granted (there's a scene where he visits her in the hospital after he learns the truth, and hisses at her that in a marriage each person is supposed to make life easier for their partner, the implication being she didn't do that, and I wondered how much easier he made her life. It takes a bit longer for that thought to occur to him).

I just wasn't that interested in any of it. I wanted the destination, not the journey. I guess because I'm curious how different creators will resolve particular conflicts. When using the "married person confronts their partner's lover", do they opt for anger, comedy, forgiveness? How does the philanderer react when confronted with their actions? There are certain stories that are pretty timeworn, but you can still get a lot of mileage out of them because there are so many different directions to approach it from. In this case, it starts out looking as though it'll be anger, and then it shifts to trying to do the right thing. Clooney trying to be the bigger man, or do one last good thing for his wife, one or the other.