I'd be so bold as to say that "The Descendants" is quite possibly Alexander Payne's finest film yet. He has the ability to touch upon hallmark moments in his characters lives and turns their utmost unlikable traits and make them endearing somehow. There's something about every character in "The Descendants" that's unlikable and obnoxious, and yet at the end of the day we can't help but be charmed by them. We want to hate what they lack, but Payne explores it as an ultimate character weakness that we're forced to pity, in the end. As a film it's Payne's finest and as a performance it's George Clooney's finest to date. It's his best, because he is so Un-Clooney it's pretty daunting to watch at times. Clooney is usually and quite accurately accustomed to playing suave, debonair businessmen and politicians and for once Clooney takes a role that grants him the ability to be average. Sure, Clooney is still Clooney, but he completely drops out of his element to take on a role as Matt King, a man who is always four steps behind every single person in his life. When his wife falls in to a coma from a boating accident, years later he learns from her doctors that she will never wake up and Matt decides to take her off of life support. Now he must gather his family to make the declaration of her final hours.

His confrontations with characters in his immediate and extended family are often very heartbreaking as he clearly has never known the people closest in his life. When it's time to do so, it's so difficult Matt is a man fighting an uphill battle. The best example of such a battle is when Matt learns his wife was unfaithful to him and he struggles to find out her mystery lover subjecting himself to running across his small town on foot to catch up with this revelation and make sense of a clearly life shattering discovery. Clooney completely drops any and all pretense in this performance, providing a quirky and often eccentric portrayal as a man who hasn't fully built an identity for himself and has to see what the lack of presence in the world as wrought through his two daughters. Co-star Shailene Woodley is absolutely fantastic, playing off of Clooney brilliantly as his oldest daughter Alexandra who has little lust for life and seeks not to re-unite with her ailing mother before her last hours. The initial meeting with her is shocking and once we delve in to her character's internal logic for her angst as well as he general disposition, she becomes a protagonist we can not only root for, but love in the process.

Her role as Clooney's daughter feels natural and the journey she takes feels all too real for anyone who grew up as the oldest child all too aware of their parents' flaws. Her journey also coincides with that of her sister Scottie, who is awkwardly embracing adolescence and must be guided firmly by Alex and Matt as she begins to rebel and form her own stance on life and death. Of course where would a Payne film be without a masterful supporting cast, and "The Descendants" brings it in spades with top notch performances by Robert Forester, Matthew Lillard, Judy Greer, and the incomparable Nick Krause as Sid, a character so unbelievably obnoxious, you'll fall for him by film's final half. Of course Payne has a knack for making audiences root for even the most despicable characters, and "The Descendants" has that unbelievable charm and gripping journey to it that will keep you soaked in its melancholy until the very end.