"The Descendants"

As I thought about this week’s blog, I didn’t dream I would be writing a movie review. But after seeing The Descendants, I have been unable think of anything more appropriate.  Whether you see it or not, the trailers for the movie are misleading.  You might have seen them with George Clooney running down the street in Hawaiian shirt, shorts and flip flops. Or flashing that million-dollar smile on an Hawaiian beach. It looks like a typical and charming comedy. It’s not.

Clooney plays the descendant of early settlers of Hawaii who oversees the family trust and its extensive landholdings throughout the islands. Like many busy fathers, he has left most of the child rearing to his wife.  The movie starts with him trying to cope with the reality of his fatally injured and comatose wife and the prospect of rearing his two daughters alone.  Before his wife is to be removed from life support and Clooney is preparing his family and friends, he learns that his wife was having an affair. The rest of the movie is what happens from there.

Boy, that sounds like a fun movie! I understand why the trailers were so cute if they wanted anyone to go see it. But for me, it was a moving and uplifting experience.

As the opening narrator, Clooney reminds us that Hawaii is not paradise and that people die of cancer there and families struggle just like everywhere else. And throughout the movie, there is nothing extraordinary in any of the situations or any of the characters.  I could imagine similar things happening everyday here.  However, in seeing how the characters respond to events and each other, we are shown wonders of this life:  redemption, forgiveness and compassion.  I am reminded that I don’t have to travel to faraway places to see marvelous things.  I just have to stop, look around me and pay attention.

At first encounter, the characters seem easy to put in a convenient box: the resentful father-in-law, the rebellious daughter, the goofy boyfriend.  But as the story unfolds, they become so much more than two-dimensional characters.  They serve as a reminder that as in real-life, everyone has a story. And in learning the story, I am ashamed of my prejudgments.

There were lots of reaffirming messages throughout but as the closing credits rolled, I recalled a saying that best summed it up for me: Be kind to all you meet, for each fights a great battle.