George Clooney and Alexander Payne could pair up for 'The Descendants'

By Sarah Sluis

George Clooney under the direction of Alexander Payne? Sounds like a winning combination to me. Clooney is known for choosing atypical comedies, and Payne's movies are darkly comedic, yet embraced by a wide range of viewers. He now plans to direct The Descendants, an adaptation of the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings. This will be the first project he's directed in five years, and the first film he has directed without also receiving a writing credit. He previously wrote and directed four films within the span of eight years: Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt and Sideways.

The plot, as provided by Variety, "centers on a wealthy landowner who takes his two daughters on a search for his wife's lover in the hopes of keeping his family together." A look at a summary of the source novel, however, reveals more nuance as well as the trademark dark comedy tone Payne is so adept at handling.

Clooney will play the landowner who is descended from a Hawaiian princess and a haole (white person/foreigner). He's had a life of leisure and is married to a beautiful, adventurous woman, now in a terminal coma after a catamaran accident. His 10 and 17-year-old daughters are strangers to him, and his relationship with them is awkward at best. He's also mulling over a business deal that would involve him selling his family land to a real estate developer. As he's contemplating pulling the plug on his wife, he finds out that she has been having an affair for some time with a real estate broker. He gathers his children (the eldest sent from her boarding school) in search of his wife's lover.

Among his other talents, Payne is a director of actors. He exacted an amazing performance from Reese Witherspoon (pre-Legally Blonde) when she was an up-and-comer in Election. In his past two high-profile films, he directed his actors to Oscar-nominated roles (with the exception of Paul Giamatti, who still deserved one). Jack Nicholson and Kathy Bates were nominated in About Schmidt, and Thomas Haden Church and Virginia Madsen were nominated in Sideways. Is Clooney angling for an Oscar follow-up to Syriana?

The movie will start shooting in February in Hawaii. Clooney is currently in Spain shooting The American while three of his films debut this fall: The Men Who Stare at Goats, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Up in the Air.