The Descendants

Matt King is a lawyer in Hawaii who manages a large parcel of ancestral land held by his extended family. A deal to sell it is close to completion when his wife Elizabeth is left in a coma after a boating accident. Already distant from his two daughters, the ten-year-old Scottie and the rebellious seventeen-year-old Alexandra, Matt learns from the older girl that Elizabeth had been seeing another man. He sets out with both daughters, and with Alexandra's friend Sid in tow, to find the man and confront him, a journey across the islands that also forces the family to face what has happened to them.

Alexander Payne directed from a screenplay he wrote with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, and produced with Jim Taylor and Jim Burke. The film was the sixth feature Payne directed, following Sideways, Paris, Je T'aime and the earlier Citizen Ruth, Election and About Schmidt. George Clooney plays Matt, with Shailene Woodley as Alexandra, Amara Miller as Scottie, Nick Krause as Sid and Patricia Hastie as Elizabeth.

Made for about 20 million dollars, the film took roughly 177 million worldwide, a strong return on its budget. On IMDb it holds 7.3 out of 10 across about 259,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.8 out of 10 from a much smaller pool of voters. A critics' rating of 8.2 out of 10, drawn from 264 reviews, places it above both audience scores.