The Descendants

George Clooney first became famous for his good looks and effortless charm, but over the last few years has emphatically broken that mould with a series of intelligent films. Clooney’s work of late is noticeable for his ability to combine an off-the-wall sense of humour with real emotional gravitas. The Descendants is vintage Clooney, a bubbly yet deep family drama, full of gritty moments and memorable characters.

Clooney plays Matt King, an emotionally distant and uninvolved husband and father whose life is thrown into turmoil when his thrill-seeking wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie) ends up in a coma after a boating accident. Matt is a self-described ‘back-up parent’ who now has to deal with two angry teenage daughters, while deciding whether to sell a vast tract of land to a condo-building conglomerate. The land has been in his family for generations, and while he has a controlling share, his emotional bond to the property is being challenged by money-hungry relatives. In the midst of all of this turmoil, Matt finds out his wife was having an affair and becomes obsessed with tracking down her lover.

Director Alexander Payne charts a course through all this emotional mess with remarkable story-telling skill and a wry sense of humour. He brings the best out of all his actors as each and every character is lent significant weight and complexity. Matt’s father-in-law, Mr Thorson (Robert Speer), greedy cousin Hugh (Beau Bridges) and even the adulterer Brian (Matthew Lillard) all manage to transcend the stereotypes of their type of supporting role because we see the ‘greyness‘ of their underlying moral currents just as clearly as we do with Matt. We can empathise with them even if we don’t always support their decisions.

Similarly, Matt’s legal, family and emotional travails are impossible to neatly compartmentalise into little good and evil, right and wrong boxes. Only an actor of Clooney’s intelligence could get us to arrive at his conclusions by the end of the movie. The Descendants is an almost perfect blend of light-heartedness and real emotional drama. Neither the comedy nor the drama would have worked by themselves in this instance, but together they deliver an impactful yet breezy meditation on life, family and relationships.

Four stars out of five. Running time: 115 minutes. Rated R (for language including some sexual references).

The Ides of March

The Ides of March seems to bite off less than it can chew. Billed as a political morality tale, it ultimately delivers no other message than politics is dirty. As if this is news to the voting public. This is the greatest weakness of this movie, and prevents it from becoming something truly worthwhile. The acting is world-class but the absence of a real message, and a somewhat stilted script restricts The Ides of March from saying something worth hearing. It does its level best to relate the human tragedy behind a political fallout but the one-dimensional message means everything comes off a little immature.

This is not to say that The Ides of March is not worth buying a ticket for. On the contrary, the acting alone is quite enthralling. Director, script writer and support actor George Clooney stands aside for Ryan Gosling to take centre stage as a talented campaign press secretary. Gosling is simply superb in this role as he finds himself embroiled in a political scandal that threatens to derail his candidate’s title run for the presidency. Also central to the plot are Clooney as the promising Democrat candidate, a decorated veteran who appears to have the courage of his convictions, and the brilliant Philip Semour Hoffman as the grizzled, cynical campaign manager, Paul Zara. Marisa Tomei keeps complicating things in her role as a political journalist searching for the next big story, while Molly (Evan Rachel Wood) is the vivacious yet vulnerable intern. Yes, of course, someone on the team ends up sleeping with the political intern but Wood plays her scenes with enough intelligence to steer it away from stereotype.

The theme of seduction related to power is heavily prominent through all the various relationships in the movie, and interesting revelations are brought out into the open as a result. One particularly striking scene takes place on either side of an American flag, as Clooney’s character gives a cool, calm and ‘in-control’ type of speech in front of the flag, while an angry Hoffman and panicking Gosling argue behind it. A simple dichotomy that displays the difference between appearances and reality in the halls of power. The Ides of March lacks the sophistication necessary to be truly hard-hitting but is still lent enough strength by the intense acting to be worth a visit. Three stars out of five. Rated ‘R’ for pervasive language.

Sherlock Holmes Gets Down and Dirty

A little bit of escapism every now and then is not necessarily a bad thing. Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law appear in the second reworking of the Sherlock Holmes mythology, playing Holmes and Dr. Watson respectively. Purists beware! This is no faithful retelling of Conan Doyle’s classics, but a complete revision. Holmes here tosses aside his pipe and deerstalker hat to embrace a bohemian steam punk existence. While much is made of Holmes’ intellect, and it is easy somehow to believe Downey as a misunderstood genius, this is not an intellectual thriller built around a gripping mystery, but rather a wall-to-wall action fest filled with exotic locales and spectacular stunts. This is more James Bond of the 19th century than the Mentalist. Holmes does not sit back in his armchair to ponder over puzzling clues, but rather rips off his shirt and leaps fists first in the fray, displaying Jedi-like precognition and reflexes.

Since the first Sherlock Holmes revision did so well in 2009 it seems the purists will have to suffer these indignities a while longer, because the general public obviously likes director Guy Ritchie’s interpretation. The second edition introduces the only man able to rival Holmes’ legendary intellect in Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris). Moriarty may even be able to surpass Holmes because of his unrestrained conscience and capacity for evil. Moriarty plans to start a world war (this being 1891) so that he can cash in on selling arms, and the criminal mastermind always seems one step ahead of Holmes. Harris plays Moriarty with sinister deviousness, but sadly his intellectual clashes with Holmes, which account for two of the most entertaining scenes in the whole movie, are limited. The rest of the time Holmes is dashing across the globe trying to prevent Moriarty from changing the course of history. He is accompanied by his faithful friend Watson, for whom this new interpretation sees fit to introduce a heavy bromance element. This provides many amusing scenes, the best of which sees Holmes crash Watson’s honeymoon on a train while dressed in drag. It all makes perfect sense, but you have to see it first.

Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows does suffer from a paint-by-numbers plot and slightly stilted script, but since it does not pretend to be anything other than an entertaining romp, we can forgive it that. The ending is a class above the rest of the film to be honest, being both tense and immensely satisfying. Three (and a half) stars out of five.

Midnight in Paris

Critics are falling over themselves to declare this the best Woody Allen film in years. Not being a great Woody Allen fan, I cannot help but agree, simply because this is the first one I have genuinely liked. Midnight in Paris is a romantic comedy with a touch of fantasy thrown in as it involves some form of mysterious time travel. Owen Wilson is Gil, a successful Hollywood screenwriter but an unsuccessful novelist.

Gil is vacationing in Paris with his uptight fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her even more uptight conservative parents. Inez is getting hit on by an exceedingly arrogant know-it-all professor (amusingly played by Michael Sheen). Gil finds himself moping about the city at midnight when he is picked up by a vintage Peugeot containing Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. He is whisked off into the 1920s, a glorious Jazz age that also happened to be filled with a litany of literary stars and famous artists. Gil finds himself rubbing shoulders with all his heroes (Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali, Luis Buñuel). Allen treats these artistic giants with touching respect and insightful humour, while the actors involved manage to bring them glowingly alive, especially Adrien Brody as Salvador Dali and Kathy Bates as Gertude Stein. They just seem to be having so much fun playing these characters which is charming while lending an infectious energy to the viewing experience.

Gil’s day times are marked by an increasingly tense relationship with his fiancee and in-laws, while his night times are spent in the vibrant company of people who inspire him. He also finds himself entranced with a beautiful woman named Adriana (Marion Cotillard). We learn that Gil’s fantasy, while sweet and fun, also contains real tension since he seems as much a prisoner of time as a traveller of it. The moral behind Midnight in Paris is no great mystery - ‘the present is unsatisfying because my life is unsatisfying’ - but here the moral is positively wrapped in a loving embrace that seeks to open viewers up more to life’s varied experiences.

Four stars out of five. Rated PG-13 (for some sexual references and smoking).