Our Hope Wanes For a while there I thought Alexander Payne was the best director in the world. He hit the bullseye with About Schmidt and Sideways telling compelling, entertaining stories about 'real' people. He was so anti-Hollywood, showing the side of life no one 'wants to see', but never allowing concept or style to overwhelm or replace the story. The story had been the backbone of the film, and those stories were great. There is a lot of quirk and heart and good intent with The Descendants and Nebraska, but they are not engaging stories. They may be stories, but Mr. Payne's flair has caught up with himself, it seems. His last two films have relied on what have become tricks, using set decoration minutia, witty, surprising dialogue, casting real-looking people (or non-actors in many cases), uncharacteristic and shocking sexual overtures made by unlikely candidates. Those things worked in About Schmidt and Sideways (and Election) because the good stories those movies told were only highlighted by those details and comic turns, not supported by them. In The Descendants it seemed Mr. Payne had gone soft and cast Clooney in a typical-Clooney role (just a great guy, what a great guy he is!), unlike Nicholson in About Schmidt in a role we had never imagined he would play (and play so well). The Hawaii land plot a diverting and unnecessary distraction and contrivance, the heart-tugging classic father/daughter relationship, the glamour of the locale, the ultimate graciousness and forgiveness, all basically a reversal of Payne's style. Like he went Hollywood. He was critically lauded and nominated for awards as his other films had been. But it stopped mattering, because now it was just mediocre, by the standards Payne had set for himself. He probably knew that and made Nebraska as his rebuttal to himself. The film almost punishes us by its lack of dimensionality. We know where this is going and it is not surprising. Painfully slow without demonstrating its need for such, not even making literal sense at times, the movie never gains any steam, there is no rising action, it is a big flat line across the screen. It resorts to the aforementioned tricks to distract us from realizing that, while this may be called a story, it is not a compelling one, and one that does not take risks. It uses tricks. Example of a trick: The younger son's girlfriend is intentionally unattractive and overweight. We're supposed to think this lends some credibility to the realism of the film. 'Oh, isn't that interesting! We're not seeing a Hollywood starlet in the girlfriend role! She's ugly and overweight! How interesting!' This is just set decoration. Such tricks worked in his previous films, but not here, because it is a mask. What does this trick accomplish? Establishing the son's character as.. Sympathetic, pathetic, realistic, weak..?? Who knows. Who cares. Without creating a great story, these choices are merely interesting, but no longer important. Why isn't the story great? The writing and the plot. They must continue shooting itself in the foot, because the protagonist is never-endingly taciturn, and while we can sense there is more going on inside him, the movie intentionally makes us guess at why he will not let go of a ridiculous claim to the million dollars. Is it because he's senile? Is it because he's poorly educated and isn't intelligent enough to render common sense to the matter? Why doesn't he get it? He's out of it? We don't know. We don't ever know. The movie doesn't want us to know. If we knew, we would know that there is no reason, because it's all contrived, it's a device. I am only so critical because I was such a big fan of his other films. I realize that is possibly unfair. But this is the Internet, we can write whatever we want. Who cares. But I really care, so maybe you're like me out there, who was so touched and inspired by Mr. Payne's previous work. I was so desperately looking forward to The Descendants, like I needed it, I needed to be affected, I needed to see a great story in the movie theater. Perhaps it's unreasonable to expect greatness. But in this day and age, it is so rare, we have only a special few that are capable, Mr. Payne being one. So despite my complaints, I hope Mr. Payne has a great story to tell again some day. In the meantime, we have got to pick up the slack, myself included.