You go to see a film about a Hawaiian named Matt King, who is played by George Clooney.
This movie has been directed by Alexander Payne, a director whom you quite like, particularly his “14e Arrondissement,” so you don’t much mind that Clooney strikes you as anything but Hawaiian. And you like Clooney, who has been in — and even has directed — a few of your favorite films, including “Syriana” and “Good Night, and Good Luck.” And, anyways, it’s just a movie and someone has to star in it.
It’s Sunday and the movie theater is mostly empty, aside from a few old guys and a bum that’s paid the matinee price just for a clean not-well-lighted place to nap.
But as you settle in to watch the movie, you feel anything but alone. That’s because Payne’s new movie largely is about an infidelity, a topic that you both know well and do not know at all. You know it well because the art you consume is full of it — it is, for example, the topic of “Delicate Wives,” the John Updike short story that you’ve just read the night before — but you don’t know it well because you’ve never been much for infidelity and you never have been a victim either, at least not that you know about. Still, your old flames and your current beau or spouse somehow won’t be far from your thoughts during the movie. So you are anything but alone.
You watch King, a wealthy lawyer who is descended from actual Hawaiin kings and white settlers and whose surname must not have been changed from a very early draft of the script. King’s wife is in a coma. She landed in the hospital after a boating accident. Things are grim.
You see King dealing with the aftermath of his wife’s condition. On top of that, he’s got to deal with her past transgressions with a real estate agent. You are not very impressed at the overt symbolism when King is running to ask someone if the story of infidelity is true and he literally turns a corner on the road. You think it’s a little much that he stays on the road and doesn’t even cut across the grass.
The story builds slowly, with King’s two young daughters really shining. They’re both great young actresses.
And there are other great supporting actors. One is Nick Krause, who plays a friend of the older daughter. Krause, who you find to be very unlikeable but totally believable, says the word “retarded” in a derogatory way and you’re a little hurt by this, but then you realize that saying it like that is very much in his character and you feel that it’s justified and like Krause and Payne a little more for that tiny bit of gusto. You start to like Krause and, by the time the movie’s over, you realize that he’s actually one of the heros. (Later, you’re really bummed when he doesn’t get a nod from the Academy and that Jonah Hill inexplicably is nominated.)
You are impressed by Payne’s movie. And later when you think about the movie, there is one particular scene that sticks in your mind. It is the inevitable meeting of King and the real-estate-agent-dirtbag. They meet at a cottage, a rented Hawaiian home where King once spent happy summers as a kid. (By this point in the flick, you are so beaten down by the use of symbols that you’ve stopped caring that Payne is so blunt about presenting them. This is a director who deals with the Importance of Surroundings and you’re OK with that, you realize.)
The real estate agent is played by an actor that you can only place from the horror movie “Scream.” You actually think that this actor, who you later look up and find out is named Matthew Lillard, is pretty good in this real-estate-agent-dirtbag role.
The meeting between King and the real estate agent, you find, is very true to both characters. You had wondered if maybe Clooney-as-King will act more like a tough guy when he confronts the cuckholder. You had wondered if he would become a Liam-Neeson-as-King type of cuckhold. But he doesn’t. He is strong, but litigious, as any lawyer probably would be. When you see “The Descendants” again, in a small theater where they serve beer, you will be even more impressed with the dialogue in this scene.
“Ever been inside my bedroom,” King will say.
“Once,” the real-estate-agent-dirtbag will say.
“You could have had the decency to lie about that one,” King will say.
You will laugh at this even the second time. And you will like that this little happiness is sprinkled in with the sadness of Payne’s movie, because that’s the point.
