The Descendants (2011)

All Critics (231) | Top Critics (45) | Fresh (208) | Rotten (25) | DVD (8)

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

January 24, 2012 Full Review

Dave Calhoun

Time Out

Top Critic

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

November 23, 2011 Full Review | Comments (24)

Tom Long

Detroit News

Top Critic

In the hands of writer-director Alexander Payne, Clooney has rarely seemed so much at home.

November 22, 2011 Full Review

Rene Rodriguez

Miami Herald

Top Critic

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.

November 22, 2011 Full Review | Comment (1)

Bill Goodykoontz

Arizona Republic

Top Critic

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

November 22, 2011 Full Review

Moira MacDonald

Seattle Times

Top Critic

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."

November 20, 2011 Full Review | Comments (7)

Anthony Lane

New Yorker

Top Critic

A beautifully touching, tragic and amusing follow-up film from the director of Sideways.

March 4, 2013 Full Review

Tom Glasson

Concrete Playground

The Descendants manages to even surpass those stratospheric expectations most fans will have walking into the theatre.

February 11, 2013 Full Review

Kristal Cooper

We Got This Covered

Like "Sideways" and "About Schmidt," "The Descendants" lets Alexander Payne show us the Other America and the Other Americans - little lives caught up in small but epic problems far away from the La La Land of Hollywood hype, sex and violence.

December 28, 2012 Full Review

Roger Moore

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Each year there are usually one or two films that don't deserve all of the insane praise they get (last year's The Fighter is a prime example) and it looks like "The Descendants" is one for this year.

September 18, 2012 Full Review

Jeff Beck

Examiner.com

Understandable when dealing with Payne's typically directionless protagonists, The Descendants occasionally feels like it is unsure of where it's going, yet it still always ambles along at a pleasant pace regardless.

September 13, 2012 Full Review

Matt Looker

TheShiznit.co.uk

A thoroughly rewarding assembled-for-adults dramedy that benefits immensely from both its island locale and one of George Clooney's finest performances.

August 27, 2012 Full Review

Erick Weber

NECN

The Descendants is a devastating and rewarding emotional journey.

May 8, 2012 Full Review

Blake Howard

2UE That Movie Show

Will keep you soaked in its melancholy until the very end...

May 3, 2012 Full Review

Felix Vasquez Jr.

Cinema Crazed

Sort of like a shotgun marriage between Jimmy Buffett and Harry Chapin.

April 30, 2012 Full Review

Rob Gonsalves

eFilmCritic.com

There's some pretty tricky material for Payne and crew to navigate, but anchored by a terrific cast it's a journey of hurt and healing that lingers.

April 16, 2012 Full Review

Bruce Bennett

Spectrum (St. George, Utah)

overrated, but not a bad movie

April 6, 2012 Full Review | Comment (1)

Kevin Carr

7M Pictures

Alexander Payne's lovely, resonant fifth film does the hula on a lonely island of imminent death and wasted life, and receives an excellent transfer from Fox, coupled with a mixed bag of extras.

March 26, 2012 Full Review

Chris Cabin

Slant Magazine

"The Descendants" goes on too long, but that's its only flaw. And frankly, I can see why Payne and his editor decided to go with this print instead of making some awfully tough decisions.

March 15, 2012 Full Review

James Plath

Movie Metropolis

George Clooney gives a wonderful lead performance in his new film The Descendants but Clooney has always been more than just a handsome face, he's a proper movie star and in that old Hollywood tradition, he's also an everyman, one of us.

March 10, 2012 Full Review

Brian Henry Martin

UTV

No doubt the awards hype around the film will get people into cinemas but it doesn't warrant the attention considering Payne's previous work and Clooney has put in much better performances.

March 8, 2012 Full Review

Cameron Williams

The Popcorn Junkie

Payne manages to give the film a lightness that makes it uplifting or at the least fulfilling, rather than depressing.

February 23, 2012 Full Review

Matt Neal

The Standard

full review at Movies for the Masses

February 17, 2012 Full Review | Comments (8)

Joseph Proimakis

Movies for the Masses

• 1. Matt King: Come after me if you want. It will just make us closer.
  – Submitted by In Your D (5 months ago)
• 1. Matt King: You give your children enough money to do something, but not enough to do nothing.
  – Submitted by Prem Y (9 months ago)
• 1. Alexandra King: [Scottie presses the 'Adults Only' button and Alex grabs the remote away from her] No, you're not watching porn.
  2. Alexandra King: [to Sid] My dad watches porn.
  – Submitted by Alyssa B (10 months ago)
• 1. Kai Mitchell: Matt, you're angry.
  2. Matt King: You have very keen powers of observation.
  – Submitted by Kelley L (14 months ago)
• 1. Scott Thorson: I am going to hit you.
  – Submitted by Raj G (14 months ago)
• 1. Matt King: My friends on the mainland think just because I leave in Hawaii, I live in paradise, like a permanent vacation. We're all just out here, sipping Mai Tais, shaking our hips, catching waves. Are they insane? Do they think we are immune to life? How can they possibly think our famalies are less screwed up, our cancers less fatal, our heartache less painful?
  – Submitted by Raj G (14 months ago)