{"id":2878,"date":"2011-11-02T14:27:22","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T14:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=2878"},"modified":"2011-11-08T14:38:49","modified_gmt":"2011-11-08T14:38:49","slug":"preview-george-clooney-in-the-descendants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=2878","title":{"rendered":"PREVIEW: George Clooney in ‘The Descendants’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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George Clooney and Shailene Woodley as his daughter in Alexander Payne's 'The Descendants'<\/p><\/div>\n

By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

When Kaui Hart Hemmings\u2019 novel “The Descendants”, about a family in Hawaii troubled by modern anguish and ancient concerns, was published in the UK, the Daily Mail\u2019s response was typical. Her assured touch and fine grasp of the absurd \u201censures that this novel steers a deliciously scenic route between heartbreak and hilarity,\u201d the paper said.<\/p>\n

Now most critics have said the same about the film version starring George Clooney, which Fox will release in the UK on Jan. 27. He plays a busy lawyer named Matt King who has neglected his wife Julie and two daughters to the point that his spouse has taken a lover and he hardly knows his kids.<\/p>\n

He also is responsible for the sale of his family\u2019s vast swathe of inherited land on the beautiful island of Kauai and the story is about how Matt deals with everything after Julie ends up in a coma after a boating accident.<\/p>\n

Daily Mail film critic Chris Tookey calls the picture, directed and co-scripted by Alexander Payne, a masterpiece: \u201cHere\u2019s a certainty for consideration at the Oscars: a grown-up, perceptive, funny film about family and responsibility, subjects rarely covered in movies except in clich\u00e9d, romantic terms.<\/p>\n

The movie was well received at the Toronto International Film Festival where Clooney and Payne revealed that the actor had been considered for Payne\u2019s 2004 film \u201cSideways\u201d.<\/p>\n

Clooney said, \u201cI was very close to getting \u2018Sideways\u2019 but he gave it to someone else. Before I read this script, I took the project because I wanted to work with him and then I read the script and said, wow, I want to do this part \u2026 a really good script in the hands of a really good director, it\u2019s an easy yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Payne said, \u201cHe\u2019s really one of the few contemporary stars that I wanted to work with. I expected that we\u2019d hit it off. It just worked out that he was completely the right choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clooney said the screenplay was the key: \u201cYou can make a really bad movie out of a good script, but you can\u2019t make a good movie out of a bad script. When you see the film the thing that is Alexander\u2019s specialty is the ability to switch on a dime between funny and sad. It\u2019s hard to do, and it\u2019s hard as an actor to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he said that to play a father was just like any other role: \u201cI\u2019ve played a father before, a few times. I don\u2019t think you have to shoot heroin to play a heroin addict. I\u2019m not running for president but I can play a candidate. Most of the time you don\u2019t have to have those things in your life to understand what it was like. And I had these girls with me and it was like having children except you get to give them away at the end of the day, which was nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

THE DESCENDANTS:\u00a0Potential home entertainment release: Q2 2012;\u00a0In cinemas: Jan. 27;\u00a0Window (17 weeks): May 25;\u00a0Distributor: 20th Century Fox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett When Kaui Hart Hemmings\u2019 novel “The Descendants”, about a family in Hawaii troubled by modern anguish and ancient concerns, was published in the UK, the Daily Mail\u2019s response was typical. Her assured touch and fine grasp of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1365],"tags":[1381,1658,603,1657,1192],"class_list":["post-2878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-previews","tag-20th-century-fox","tag-alexander-payne","tag-george-clooney","tag-the-descendants","tag-toronto-international-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2878"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2885,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2878\/revisions\/2885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}