I liked it. I enjoyed it. I did not resent the time I'd spent watching it, although that may just be because I seriously have nothing better to do.

| Aug 31, 2018

The Descendants is humane, decent, and close to real quality.

| Jun 20, 2013

The film plays to Payne's strengths - not just the emotional complexity and the constantly shifting kaleidoscope of moods, but his skill at eliciting in-depth performances from his cast.

| Jan 31, 2012

Few films have dealt with the concept of parental death as movingly, poetically and lovingly as this, delivering a strikingly powerful narrative that is as profound as it is honest.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jan 27, 2012

Payne's interest is the human drama: he's very much the director-as-novelist and The Descendants has all the satisfactions of a story well told.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 27, 2012

As is the way with Payne's films, we go away feeling that every man is an island - and it's only a matter of time before each of us finds ourselves deserted.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 27, 2012

The saving notes are the film's minutiae. There are dialogue moments in Payne's drollest, enemies-on-edge style.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 26, 2012

Worth the wait. Don't stay away for so long next time though, Alex.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 26, 2012

This sweet, sad new film from Alexander Payne holds a promise of gentleness that is fulfilled, and a promise of complexity that isn't.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 26, 2012

Payne is an unobtrusive director, a filmmaker who lets the script do the walking - in this case, perhaps too much.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 24, 2012

A marvellous follow-up to 2004's Sideways - well worth the wait.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 23, 2012

Wants to be mature but can't help shortchanging its drama through constant reliance on its protagonist's unimpeachable nobility.

| Original Score: C+ | Dec 12, 2011

The challenge in describing the film is that it doesn't neatly fit into any pigeonhole. It's a serious movie that happens to have a sense of humor, because Payne and his collaborators see the absurdity in everyday existence.

| Dec 2, 2011

The Descendants is beautifully shot (by Phedon Papamichael) and compellingly performed, especially by its young stars, and it has moments of startling tenderness. If only it didn't feel phony to its bones.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 26, 2011

One of the year's best films, a bubbly meditation on family and responsibility that weighs just enough to matter.

| Original Score: A- | Nov 23, 2011

In playing an everyman stranded between anger and duty, Clooney earns an emotional payoff that a lesser actor would simply demand.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 22, 2011

With so many balls in the air the temptation is to rush from one plot strand to another, but Payne takes the opposite approach. He also captures the complexity of emotional reactions that grief stirs.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 22, 2011

It's Clooney and Woodley's movie, as they become a team before our eyes.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 22, 2011

The latest exhibit in Payne's careful dissection of the beached male, which runs from Matthew Broderick's character in "Election" to Jack Nicholson's in "About Schmidt" and Paul Giamatti's in "Sideways."

| Nov 20, 2011

This mature, well-acted dramatic comedy is deeply satisfying, maybe even cathartic.

| Original Score: B+ | Nov 19, 2011