“The Descendants” is the odds-on, favorite for the Oscars. I am not so sure I agree. Don’t get me wrong, it is an excellent film, intriguing and all, but I just wasn’t terribly moved. However, I find it authentic and worth going to see what all the hoopla is about. It is, indeed, a “smart” movie and compelling.

 The director, Alexander Payne (“Sideways”) is certainly talented at making films about ordinary people experiencing, realistically and awkwardly, trippingly and sloggingly, the vicissitudes and indignities of life simply trying just to survive, to eventually achieve some semblance of purpose; no real epiphany, no fame or heroic glory, no burst of ecstasy, no clear and unequivocal happy-ever-after; just the sloppy, messy, complexities of life.

Matt King (George Clooney) is a lawyer in Hawaii, a descendant of a Hawaiian princess. He and his family have long ago bred out their native blood — the family looking more like the Eriksen family from Minnesota — but perhaps there was a point to that. Anyway, the family has a huge, pristine, chunk of undeveloped land held in trust for them right on the ocean, breathtaking in natural majesty. In seven years the trust will be dissolved. Many of the cousins are desperate for money; Matt has been frugal and lives modestly with his wife and two daughters. He works hard, perhaps too hard, occasionally ignoring them. But a boating accident has left his wife in a coma, on life support and without brain activity. The prognosis is tragic. You know what is coming.

Compounding all of this, Matt’s eldest, 17-year-old daughter, Alexandra, called Alex (Shailene Woodley), is toying with drugs and alcohol, has already been sent to a boarding school because she couldn’t behave and fought with her mother. The youngest, Scottie (Amara Miller), is acting out and by that I mean acting weird, now that her mother is comatose.

While Matt is coming to grips with his wife’s mortality, he, as sole trustee, has to decide for his umpteen cousins, if he should sell the land to some mainland slapdash developer or a Hawaiian resident who wants to turn it into a giant resort. The former is far more profitable; the latter slightly less-so but more local-friendly. Neither is pro-conservationist and both options are somewhat unwelcome by the ethnic Hawaiians.

 Matt learns from his eldest daughter that their (daughter-mother) recent blowout was because she (the daughter) discovered that her mother was having an affair with another man. The movie is about Matt going on a journey, bonding with his daughters, especially Alex, tracking down his wife’s lover for an opportunity to say “goodbye” to Matt’s wife and maybe to punch him out. Mixed feelings and mixed missions.

Eventually, the family discovers that the pending business transaction and the affair have a connection. Matt’s wife’s at-death’s-door experience provides him with an opportunity to reconnect with his daughters and, while gazing at family photos, his ancestors.

This is George Clooney’s transition film; moving from handsome film star to actor-to-be-taken-seriously; no longer just a pretty face. I like George Clooney, but I can’t say that he made me emote during ”The Descendants.” I saw a Cary Grant here — a charismatic personality — but not an actor that makes me experience cinematic vertigo. I saw a guy I like go through a cathartic moment, but hardly did I witness a performance that will haunt me for years, much less weeks or even days.

I am not sure I understand why he makes the decision he does — or what were his motives. I can speculate, but I am not sure if I empathize or sympathize.

I liked, very much, Matt’s voice-over narration at the beginning: about living in “paradise” and its lack of protection against the tragedies which befall its residents in ordinary life. And I liked the very end; nice visual point: that life is tragic, but family and ice cream make it a tad more tolerable.

“The Descendants” earns four bow ties out of five.