The Descendants is a fantastic movie. I definitely recommend seeing it. The acting was fantastic across the entire cast, but especially from George Clooney and Shailene Woodley, who plays Clooney’s eldest daughter Alex.

Despite living in paradise, all of the characters in The Descendants are being weighed down by life. No matter how good they have it, no one has it good in this movie, not even perennially amused Sid.

I’ve now seen two of this year’s Best Picture nominees. While I liked The Descendants a lot, I liked Midnight in Paris more. I’m still rooting for Woody Allen’s time travel romantic comedy to take the top prize this year. But I do hope that Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash win for Writing (Adapted Screenplay), partially because I think they did a great job on this script and partially because I’m big fan of Community and want the man who gives us Dean Pelton to win.

I could also see The Descendants winning for Film Editing. I’m surprised to see it wasn’t nominated for Cinematography as well. I thought the camera work was superb.

Go see The Descendants.