Adapted from the novel The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings
The time has come for Matt King, a descendant of Hawaiian royalty, to make a decision regarding the land that he and his cousins have inherited. However, Matt is rather distracted from this important matter when his wife has a boating accident that puts her in a coma and leaves him with the responsibility of caring for their two daughters.
For the most part, this movie follows the book very closely. The characters and major events are all very consistent, with the minor exception of the wife's name being changed from Joanie to Elizabeth. As always in adaptations from novels, a few things had to be cut, but this is one of the rare times when I think they made the right choices as far as what to keep and what to omit. The book gives a better idea of what the wife was like before her coma, but the movie gives enough for us to understand the story while letting the audience wonder about who she really was, which I kind of liked. The book is written in first person from Matt's perspective, so he spends quite a bit more time reflecting on his marriage there than we see on screen, but again, we are shown enough to get a good idea of what's going on. The younger daughter, Scottie, acts out more in the book; for example, she keeps injuring herself so she'll have a good story to tell her thrill-seeking mom. This was fascinating in the book, but I wasn't particularly disappointed not to see it in the film, mostly because I didn't really want to see a child getting stung by man o' wars, but also because it helped keep the woman in the coma more of an enigma to the audience.
Pretty much the only changes I didn't agree with involved the older daughter's friend, Sid. I didn't think the movie quite did him justice. He had an interesting backstory that was oversimplified in the movie, and a couple of things he did in the book were attributed to someone else. But overall, this is a very good adaptation. Both the book and the movie tell the same story very well, in only slightly different ways.
I was a little shocked to learn that Alexander Payne, the director and co-screenwriter of this movie, also directed and co-wrote the 2004 winner, Sideways, since, as you may recall, I thought that was a terrible adaptation. He's one of only seven people (so far) to have won this award twice, and he won for one of the worst adaptations and one of the best adaptations, so I guess on average he's right in the middle. Interesting.
Up next: Best Picture Winner Argo, based on a book by Tony Mendez
