Leo Adam Biga's My Inside Stories

Oscar-winner Alexander Payne, George Clooney and Co. find love, pain and the whole damn thing shooting “The Descendants” in Hawaii” 

©by Leo Adam Biga

Excerpt from story tht originally appeared in The Reader (www.thereader.com)

Alexander Payne’s version of Paradise Lost, by way of Terms of Endearment, describes the emotional arc of his new $24 million George Clooney vehicle, The Descendants, which wrapped shooting in Hawaii at the end of May.

Arriving to interview Payne at his swank new downtown digs, he gave this reporter the nickel tour of his pad; more properly termed a penthouse loft that overlooks the Gene Leahy Mall. The place has a movie-movie look straight out of a Hollywood art director’s sketchbook. Workmen finished making fixes around the condo while we sat at a heavily lacquered round wooden table. As the tape started rolling, a thunderstorm unleashed wind and rain, enveloping the downtown canyon in sheets of gray. The curious director noted the commotion, but quickly carried on.

A premise of the Kaui Hart Hemmings novel, which Payne adapted for the film, is that life’s messiness proceeds the same in a supposed paradise as it does in, say, drab Omaha. Eden doesn’t exempt one from loss or burden. Payne revealed as much in Sideways, where errant pals turned nirvana into a pitiful wasteland.

It’s clear the writer-director prefers protagonists undertake an ironical journey. Whether Ruth Stoops (Citizen Ruth), Jim McAllister (Election), Warren Schmidt (About Schmidt), Miles and Jack (Sideways), or Clooney’s Matt King, Payne plunges anti-heroes down a rabbit hole of self-discovery.

A seriocomic odyssey writ small unfolds, ending with the beleaguered character completing and/or embarking on a trek, wizened or not along the way.

Matt King is the most emotionally mature adult male seen in the Paynesian world, but he’s not without issues. The middle-aged a-hole is a well-off attorney troubled by his identity as a landed descendant of a white missionary who married into Hawaiian royalty. What’s worse, he’s pining and worrying over his wife, who’s in a coma after a boating accident. This was not how their golden union was to end. They were the couple others envied. But we learn that things between them had been less than idyllic for a while. Matt settled for things; Liz did not. Beautiful, free-spirited, attention-grabbing Liz always got her way. Even in her vegetative state, Matt feels betrayed by her restless, reckless vibe.

Two thankless deadlines hang over Matt: to pull or not pull life support, and sell or not sell the valuable land entrusted him and his large extended family.

Much of the story revolves around Liz in the ICU. Payne does not shrink from depicting her fragile, wasted away existence.

“It’s meant to be startling,” he said, adding that actress Patricia Hastie went to extremes — losing weight, growing her body hair and nails, skimping on sleep — to achieve stark realism. Even when not on camera, her presence is felt, lending a more serious tone than usual to the satiric Payne universe.

“It’s more of a drama than I’ve done before and I’m curious to see how that turns out,” he said. “I think it’ll be OK, but I haven’t seen a lot of the footage. I thought in the past I would be afraid of drama, because I’d always made comedies. Often comedy directors have the best touch with pathos. The jury’s still out with this one.”

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF THE STORY IN MY NEW BOOK-

Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film, A Reporter’s Perspective 1998-2012

A compilation of my articles about Payne and his work.  Now available for pre-ordering.

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