The Descendants = Grace is Gone + Up in the Air

I am disappointed with The Descendants. It is a good serious film, every bit worthy of all the Oscar buzz it has been generating, but there is just too much going on. Too many strands in too small a premise. Clooney doesn't play a character too far in essence from what he played in Up in the Air. In fact, I am starting to believe that these characters resemble him somehow, though Clooney is never the kind of actor who would reveal too much of himself to the outside world. The similarities with Grace is Gone is in the basic premise itself- A father and two daughters dealing with the wife/mother's loss. The constant swearing by the kids starts from being funny to plain annoying. The film is too full of cliches. What woman would prefer Matthew Liliard to George Clooney? As far as the "descendants" bit go, it is an interesting theory of holding on to family inheritance that one has barely made use of, but the question is for how long. Sooner or later, real estate temptations will give in. Not that too many of us are familiar with what its like to own giant stretches of land and never know what to do with it. And if we did have it, would we have just left it like that? Is that really what the human mind is capable of conceiving?
The Descendants is also a very long film. A.O. Scott especially likes the film because of its pace, but I don't know whether the wait is really worth it. Because there is a neat, little, even cliched ending. When you go to watch a film, if it behaves like it has a semblance of a plot, you want to see that it is carried out till the end. "The Descendants" never figures out what it wants to be. Just like Clooney's character in the film.

One Day is a feast for beauty-starved eyes

I admit that 2011 has been a year for me to watch dreary( check: serious) cinema. For the first time in my life, I have watched films that I should watch. But there have been times when I just needed to watch something that would make me feel good for two hours, and maybe a little longer. So, I had a relapse here and there from my serious cinema routine to watch a romantic comedy. Sometimes you just need the reassurance of pop art. You can watch serious cinema to answer questions about life, but you need pop films to just know that things are ultimately going to be alright. For any serious film enthusiast, world cinema is the forte for true film appreciation. And pop films are a hobby, a breather, a fleeting assurance that the world and you are just doing fine.

So, I needed to watch something like One Day. The last few romantic comedies I had seen were unimpressive- Something Borrowed, Crazy Stupid Love, Leap Year etc. I was raised on the Meg Ryan-Julia Roberts romcoms. The closest that any actress in her 20s gets to those goddesses with a funny bone is Anne Hathaway. With Meg Ryan's self-depreciation and half of Julia Roberts' million watt smile, Hathaway has something of the original queen of quirky romcom girl, Diane Keaton. You are too busy being enamoured by her doe eyes and plump lippies to fuss too much about her accent which is just, all over the place. Her accent completely works against her acting chops(and she does have some fine ones) so occasionally you cringe at her pronouncing "stuck" as "stok", "love" as "lawv" etc. For serious, intense moments, such uncharacteristic instances are a complete massacre. And that is when you actually shift your eyes to the other feast that awaits you, Jim Sturgess.

Anne Hathaway has been completely miscast in this film. Even if her accent would actually have borne some resemblance to any province in Northern Britain, her star power does injustice to her character. This is a film for girls and older girls, and men who are fans of Hathaway. Therefore, everyone is aware of who she is. What could have been a brilliant role for a little known British actress with the right amount of talent is completely wasted on a star. The same cannot be said about Sturgess. Sturgess has a tiny legion of female fans post Across The Universe, but this role is so different and so well played that Sturgess turns out to be an "actor" in a completely commercial venture. Needless to say, it is his breakthrough performance and period films are just waiting for him around the corner. He is much too handsome in a buttoned-up-to-the-collar shirt(whoever does that?) and if not Renaissance tights, then Edwardian suits would definitely look fine on him. If I have to carry on the fantasy further, then I will also add he has a fine pair of buttocks and a wonderful body. Of, course I had meant to keep that comment private.

However, this is supposed to be a movie blog and appreciation of the human physique should not be a subject here. But what would pop films be without a plentiful amount of concentration on human beauty? There are a few tingling moments that we women adore these films for, though there are no great kissing or love-making scenes. The best romantic moment is reserved early in the movie when an ethereal Anne Hathaway has a very sexy Jim Sturgess applying lotion on her back. And before this blog ventures further into soft porn, the tension in this scene is perhaps the only one of an overtly sexual nature, while everywhere else the film is mostly a tearjerker.

The plot is simple enough. We see one day of the year-15th July- for over 20 years in Dexter's (Jim Sturgess) life and how his rather prolonged courtship with "friend" Emma Morley is finally consummated and lost. Sturgess's protrayal of the character is so realistic; his Dexter has a neat arc of character growth. From the posh boy who could get any girl who wants, to a t.v. presenter who has everything he wants, to a washed-up unemployed dad who has realised the emptiness of his life and goes after what really matters, who still loses almost everything and begins to appreciate all that he has for the first time in his life. We see Dexter for well over 20 years, from young adulthood to just before middle age. Sturgess makes him believable all the way.

There is plenty of witty dialogues to keep you laughing and a brilliant supporting cast. Patricia Clarkson looks like a million bucks and Romola Garai is grossly underused.