The Descendants

  Out of the films that we have watched in class, The Descendants was definitely one of my favorites. In my opinion it was one of the films that I thought showed a very accurate representation of life in Hawaii in comparison to other films, especially the lifestyle of the locals. It didn't show any of the barbarianism in Bird of Paradise or the more "touristy" side of Hawaii. It even showed more local people too, though they were mostly just extras or minor characters (for example, Lani's mother). They also made a good point of adding in some pidgin to the way they spoke.

  Aside from that, I also really liked the plot's point of having a relatable situation developing in Hawaii. Some may think that Hawaii was just used as an "eye-catching" quality of the "regular" subject of affairs and what not. However in my opinion I think it does way more than just that. The fact that it's a relatable event breaks the stereotype of Hawaii being "paradise." It also goes to show that these same problems can also appear in the lives of those of the higher class. It's an excellent way of showing that even the problems of daily life and of the middle class can also appear in the least likeliest of places.

  Another aspect that I really enjoyed about the film was its humor. It equally surprised me that the book also had the same, if not more, humorous lines that the film had. This also made the book and the movie a lot more interesting and fun to watch, mostly because it wasn't always about the gloomier aspect of death over all.

  There were a lot of things that I liked about this film, however I thought that they could have added in more Hawaiian characters in it. The main cast mostly consisted of caucasian actors, although they did play characters that had some Hawaiian ancestry in them. It would have been nice to see more variety, but this could be because they were portraying a higher class family. In addition, although the movie was good and stayed as true as it could to the book, there were still a lot of elements from the book that were missing that would have gave the movie a different meaning. For example, Matt's wife's romantic and financial betrayal scheme. In the movie, she was portrayed as more of a character to sympathize over, whereas in the book she was portrayed as selfish. The book also gives you more insight on their marriage as well as the wife's personality that wasn't explored or described in the movie version. However, as a whole the movie was an excellent individual piece and I would recommend it to everyone to see.