The Descendants (2011)

I will ramble on ... Alexander Payne’s awesome “The Descendants” pulls the rug out from our under feet in a quick minute as we open on a beautiful woman water skiing. Cut to black. A narrator tells us the woman – his wife -- lies in a coma following a boat crash. This story should be happy. We are in Hawaii, paradise to us in the mainland U.S.

But Matt King won’t have it. “Paradise can go fuck itself,” he says in a voice over. Bitter and angry, full of new-found reality.

Matt is an attorney whose plate runneth over: His wife is dying; he’s the title holder of a family trust worth millions of dollars, and his cousins want to cash in; he is now the sole parent of two daughters, but has never been much of a father. A final bomb: His teenage daughter reveals a shocker: “Mom has been cheating on you.”

In the hands of most film directors, this book-to-film story would be a downer, but Payne is a master of stories about men trying to cope with out-of-control lives (see “Sideways”) perfectly balanced on a wire of harsh drama and sharp comedy. This is his best film yet, and the hero is George Clooney, playing a man whose life is in shambles.

Every scene is perfectly written and plays between genres. After Matt is told of the infidelity, he takes off running in beach shoes to confront his wife’s best friend. The gag is hilarious. Yet Payne and his co-screenwriters, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, follow it with a brutal scene as Matt tears into the friend with full-on rage and fear – “Did she love him?” There are three dozen such perfect scenes, quiet, wordless scenes, too.

Robert Forester plays Matt’s father-in-law, seemingly the stereotypical asshole always decrying the man his daughter married. But Payne is smarter than such a one-note joke. He shows an old man drowning in turmoil, too weakened to even cry, over his daughter, and his Alzheimer’s stricken wife. This attention to detail is set on every character, especially the daughters, played by Amara Miller a child not fully aware of her mother’s demise, and Shailene Woodley as a troubled teen who must now become a “mother” to her sister.

I’m way past my 200-word count, but it’s so rare to see a Hollywood film this mature, a product of make-believe and paradise that tells us such notions are mirages. There are no good answers, only temporary balms such as ice cream and Morgan Freeman’s soothing voice. A

Just Go With It (2011)

Looking for a film to signal a breakup with your S.O.? “Just Go With It.” And “The Break-Up.” Hey, both star Jennifer Anniston. Why does she choose such awful projects? Here she plays a single mom and receptionist/ assistant/Jiminy Cricket to a smug plastic surgeon (Adam Sandler) who fakes being married to bed marriage-wrecker college girls. When doc falls in love with one of his scores, he bribes Anniston to play his greedy ex-wife, and her kids to be his offspring. This is one of those con shell games where the lies pile high for no other reason than to keep the plot going, and I stopped caring who hooked up with whom. Everyone on screen is an idiot or cruel or both, and the women are made to be especially gullible. You can see Anniston’s dread, and when Nicole Kidman (!?!) pops by as a snob, you can see her regret. Dennis Dugan made the awful Sandler flick “Grown-Ups,” and this is just as sloppy. Sandler hates his audience. Anniston deserves better. Nick Swardson, a Sandler apprentice, plays a vile, dumb character as an extra F.U. to the paying suckers on ... date night. D+