His first movie in since Sideways (2007), writer-director Alexander Payne’s The Descendants (based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings) is also perhaps his best movie to date. That’s saying a lot, considering the rest of his filmography includes Citizen Ruth (1996), Election (1999), and About Schmidt (2002). It’s delicate blend of drama and comedy that sidesteps shmaltz and melodrama.

George Clooney stars at Matt King, a hapless though prosperous attorney born and raised on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. He’s the first to admit (via opening voiceover) that he owes his station in life to chance, having been born into a family that begin in the 1860s with the marriage of a white missionary and Hawaiian princess descended from King Kamehameha. As such, he is the trustee of 25,000 acres of peistine, undeveloped land.

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