Reviews
The Daily Mail
Chris Tookey
"In a world full of cinematic junk food, this is haute cuisine."
27/01/2012
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The New York Times
A. O. Scott
"In most movies the characters are locked into the machinery of narrative like theme park customers strapped into a roller coaster. Their ups and downs are as predetermined as their shrieks of terror and sighs of relief, and the audience goes along for the ride. But the people in this movie seem to move freely within it, making choices and mistakes and aware, at every turn, that things could be different."
15/11/2011
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The Observer
Philip French
"The Descendants becomes a kind of exhilarating, island-hopping road movie with Matt as much in search of himself as of his wife's mysterious lover. Along the way he's learning what it means to be a man, to understand himself and others. In becoming a responsible person he must make decisions about both the nature of honesty and the difficulty of recognising when your motives are mixed and when properly disinterested.
"
29/01/2012
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The Scotsman
Alistair Harkness
"A film that still manages to deliver excruciating laughs and moments of genuine heartbreak, but in a way that’s much more surprising and memorable. But it’s really Clooney’s film, and his tender, funny, low-key performance ensures the emotional pay-off is well earned."
26/01/2012
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Scotland on Sunday
Siobhan Synnot
"Clooney adds another dimension ... his wardrobe of loud shirts and bad shorts tend to move him away from the gorgeous George image to someone who sleepwalks through his wardrobe and through his life. It is probably one of his best performances, although not one of his sexiest."
22/01/2012
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The Times
Kate Muir
"The wicked pleasure of the movie lies in the inappropriate and funny things people say when faced with death, coupled with a knowing performance by Clooney, working each wrinkle and laughter line into a map of unspoken emotions."
27/01/2012
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Total Film
Philip Kemp
"If The Descendants occasionally slips a notch below Payne’s highest standards, it’s a wry, intelligent look at the contradictions and complexities of human emotions. And the cast is exemplary, down to the smallest role."
16/01/2012
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The Independent on Sunday
Jonathan Romney
"This is possibly Clooney's most ordinary role yet – and that's a tribute. Any residue of Clooney-esque glamour that may have clung to Matt has faded; he's a tired man who doubts he's up to facing his trials. Much of the pleasure of the film is in watching Clooney's Matt acting as if he's in charge of his life – then suddenly freezing in realisation, as the weight of his situation settles on his shoulders.
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29/01/2012
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The Los Angeles Times
Betsy Sharkey
"As Payne has a habit of doing, he starts with a whole raft of issues then keeps his main players in an almost continuous state of conflict. It is part of what makes Hemmings' novel, riddled with tough choices yet humanistic in its tone, such a natural for the filmmaker ... The film is conversational in its pathos, wry in its wisdom, very much an extension of the smart, sardonic sensibility Payne brought to "Sideways," and "About Schmidt.""
16/11/2011
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Empire Magazine
Dan Jolin
"Descendants is something to be cherished."
23/01/2012
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The Evening Standard
David Sexton
"Emerges as a study in decency and the power of restraint - an unusual subject in the movies."
27/01/2012
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The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
"Nothing is more pertinent to the film than the troubled, unreliable skies overhead, not to mention the deceptive friendliness of the local garb; just because someone wears a flowery shirt doesn’t mean that he isn’t out to get you."
30/11/2011
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Channel 4 Film
Rebecca Davies
"A reasonably well-observed tragi-comedy ... and a great advert for Hawaii.
"
27/01/2012
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The Daily Telegraph
Robbie Collin
"Oddly for a film bound up in middle-aged concerns, the younger characters in The Descendants ring truer than the adults, which is at least partly down to the able young actors and actresses who play them. Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller each respond to their screen mother’s plight in a way that’s both touching and credible. "
27/01/2012
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Time Magazine
Richard Corliss
"I wanted the movie’s elevated sentiments to wash over me, inundate me in its lapping warmth, like the restorative waters on a Kauai beach. I’m a notorious softie—I have been known to tear up during beer commercials—but I remained untouched by The Descendants. I must have been wearing my wet suit."
15/11/2011
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Time Out
Dave Calhoun
"The characterisation never feels deep enough and [Payne] struggles to rein in the comic moments so they don’t jar with the core of the story: a woman lying motionless in a hospital bed. A coma-dy is a brave goal to aim for, but it’s one that Payne just misses despite some nifty work en route."
23/01/2012
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The Financial Times
Nigel Andrews
"The devil is in the lead role’s casting. This is George Clooney, not Jack Nicholson or Paul Giamatti. He cannot persuade us that he’s a menopausal male frump, messing up everyone’s life including his own ... Even when, in one sequence, he runs down a road in flip-flops trying to be ungainly, this accelerated duck waddle is just the Clooney swan doing an act."
26/01/2012
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The Guardian
Peter Bradshaw
"The Descendants is ... swathed in a romantic comfort blanket. Payne has found his softcore style, and it's fluent and persuasive, but I preferred the earlier voice: comic, lacerating and unflinching."
26/01/2012
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The Independent
Anthony Quinn
"A frustrating experience, because all the great things about Payne – his urbane irony, his wrong-footing wit, his brilliance with actors – are present but not properly gelling."
27/01/2012
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The Sunday Times
Edward Porter
"A tier below Payne’s best: Election and Sideways, in which he strikes a fine balance between pacy storytelling and attention to the messy details of characters’ inner lives. The Descendants is sketchier, which brings the essential happiness of its ending dangerously close to schmaltz.
"
29/01/2012
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The New Statesman
Ryan Gilbey
"It's true that people can be unpredictable but they're not unpredictable all the time and the consequence of squeezing into one movie so many characters with hidden aspects is to make each one seem less authentic. Keep serving up surprises or subversions and pretty soon they become nothing of the sort: "So true!" turns into "So what?" "
26/01/2012
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