Film File - The Descendants

We're coming up to Oscars season again, and, as has become a regular feature of Hollywood's biggest night, George Clooney is front and centre for an award. Having taken on the mantle of the talented lovable rogue previously owned by Jack Nicholson, Clooney's offering in 2012 is a role demonstrating just how seriously well this guy can act along with his legendary good looks. From writer and director Alexander Payne, the creator of the Oscar-winning 'Sideways', the story is set in Hawaii and follows the unpredictable journey of an American family at a crossroads. Matt King (Clooney), a husband and father of two girls, is forced to re-examine his past and navigate his future when his wife is seriously injured in a boating accident off Waikiki. He awkwardly attempts to repair his relationship with his daughters - 10-year-old precocious Scottie (Amara Miller) and rebellious 17-year-old Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) - while wrestling with a decision to sell his family's land. Handed down from Hawaiian royalty and missionaries, the Kings own some of the last priceless virgin parcels of tropical beach in the islands. When Alexandra drops the bombshell that her mother was in the midst of a romantic fling at the time of the accident, Matt has to take a whole new look at his life, not to mention his legacy, during a week of momentous decisions. With his girls in tow, he embarks on a haphazard search for his wife's lover, a journey that will change everything. Based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, Clooney's character joins Alexander Payne's previous creations as a flawed individual finding his way through a world of lunacy, bittersweet emotion and surprises. Neither a hero nor a coward, Matt King is another complex puzzle like Matthew Broderick's envious teacher in 'Election', Jack Nicholson's unhappy retiree in 'About Schmidt' and Paul Giamatti's middle-aged wine buff in 'Sideways'. King is a man who studies his life only to discover how empty and unfulfilled it all is. His daughters don't trust him, his wife has been cheating on him and his broke cousins see him and the land trust he controls as a piggy bank. And all of this inner turmoil happens within an awe-inspiring Hawaiian landscape that others see as nothing short of paradise. In Hart Hemmings' acclaimed debut novel, her entwining of island culture into a story of a bewildered man lurching towards redemption came from her own unconventional Hawaiian upbringing, as the step-daughter of well-known champion surfer and local politician, Fred Hemmings. She began it as a short story written in the voice of youngest daughter Scottie, but decided to take a daring leap into telling the tale from Matt King's middle-aged, male point of view. The risk changed everything. For fans of George Clooney, this is one of his defining roles - a display of acting talent every bit as powerful as his performances in 'Michael Clayton', 'Up In The Air' and 'Out Of Sight'. In a character study where an ordinary man's middle-aged, workaholic life is completely upended through his wife's coma and the unknown territory of understanding who his daughters are, Clooney nails in his own distinct manner the universal uncertainty of age, ambition and confused relationships. 'The Descendants' is not one of his charming roles like 'Ocean's Eleven' or 'Three Kings', and while it does have some telling moments of subtle humour, its power lies more in his portrayal of an ordinary man at a point in time where life forces upon him decisions that were never a part of his plan. The subplot about land and the greed that can tear families apart works well as a counterbalance for the deeper emotional central theme. Overall, though, this is a film mostly about the adversity of life - a theme well-known to vast sections of Irish society at the moment - and how one guy tries to make sense of it all in a mixed-up but always riveting way. It's a role with Best Actor Oscar written all over it.