Despite the backlash it sometimes gets, I always found Alexander Payne’s Sideways to be one of the more exceptionally well-written and -acted American films of the last decade, carried by a keen sense of how to balance comedy with tragedy and how to build characters’ lives out of little details. So it’s sad that, its Oscar win notwithstanding, Payne’s first feature since then bears so many of the hallmarks of sloppy screenwriting: over-reliance on voiceover and on-the-nose dialogue; tonal inconsistencies; a climactic speech that feels unearned; and contrived comic setups, where one-note characters stay one-note even in situations where all experience with human behavior would suggest otherwise. On the flipside, it’s anchored by a strong performance from Clooney and buoyed by a handful of select moments where everything clicks. But lots of it doesn’t feel natural, and if you want to handle serious themes like middle age, unhappy marriage, and white privilege, it had better. Students of the 90s take note: Matthew Lillard is now playing weaselly tools in grown-up dramas, too.
2 out of 5 stars.
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The Descendants is out on DVD this week from Fox Searchlight
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