Mining and The Descendants

Last night Mycroft saw 'The Descendants', the film of the novel written by Kaui Hart Hemmings.  Before the film began, we were treated to the usual round of movie trailers and commercials.

There was a rather odd and very long advertisement which was quite hard to decipher.  At first it seemed to refer to a woman working as an artist in the bush, then it seemed she was working at a large open-cut mine, then she was playing on the seashore with her family....it was all very odd.  The constant scene shifts seemed to indicate the mining lifestyle.  Eventually it arrived at the point....Australian Mining, Making People Rich.  In cosmopolitan Leichhardt, this resulted in hoots of laughter and derisive comments.  Even someone who agreed with the sentiments in what was really a short film would have found it rather heavy handed propaganda.  There were a few gems in it, such as the fabulous:  "Horses are good teachers for management because if you're not fair to a horse it responds badly, and it's the same with management." I am not sure if this means 'management' has to be treated fairly to stop it responding badly.....or is it the employees who are like horses and have to be treated 'fairly'?  I'm alarmed by the notion that in the company in question there is no experience of how people behave, or how to manage people, so the managers need to base their ideas of fairness on how they treat horses!


Finally able to watch the feature work of fiction, the film, this was quite enjoyable.  George Clooney pleased the crowd with a fine performance, shot on location in Hawaii. I recalled my own experiences in Hawaii, nothing quite as exotic as the Cloonster I hasten to add.  I did go Harley riding, having hired a rather noisy 1200 Sportster in Waikiki.  It had quite a few performance parts and made an impressive noise - though it would be slightly anti-social in Sydney.  No one worried about it there, even at the Garden of Tranquility (I forget what sort of garden this was, but lots of motorcycles were visiting that day so it was slightly less tranquil). 

Reviews of  'The Descendants' seem divided.  Some reviews suggest that the George Clooney character (Matt King) does not really like women and that he gloomily stalks around the movie.  As for him being gloomy, in the plot his wife is in a coma, after all.  I am not sure it would be realistic if he was skipping around.  As to whether he does or does not like women, the character Matt seems to get on well enough with his daughters Scottie and Alexandra.  His wife is in a coma, so we only have third party testimony that he's apparently been a bit of a boring husband - we don't ever see husband and wife interacting. 

Is the film involving?  Yes it is.  Perfect?  No, but then no movie ever made is.  Some are a long way from it and not even worth seeing.  'The Descendants' has enough uncertainty and plot twists to maintain interest, and it is light enough to be watchable.  It does not require a turtleneck jumper, goatee and a phd in Marxist film-making to watch and enjoy.  Apologies to any readers who have such a phd - you will all enjoy it too....