George Clooney: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

1. Matt King - The Descendants (2011)

Up In The Air is widely considered to be Clooney's best role, because of how masterfully he commands the material, and how well the character sits on his shoulders, but it is his performance two years later in the equally darkly humorous The Descandants from Alexander Payne that wins by a nose here. It's difficult not to offer gushing hyperbole, or to sound cliched when discussing The Descendants: it is, after all, a perfectly pitched portrait of grief and of loss, as harm-hearted and endearing as it is ultimately devastating, and important in its presentation of love and loss and life and family. Occasionally accused of being ambulatory - as all of Payne's films seem to be - some of the criticism the mostly adored film attracted almost entirely misses the entire point: this is a removed story, telling of others, and exotics who still live within the borders of America, but who are as alien to the excess of Hollywood and California as if they lived on another planet entirely. There is slower purpose, but no less direction, and though at times Clooney's performance might feel slow, his is one of loss and of being lost, so the tone is entirely right. The film, and Clooney's performance succeed because of their attention to detail, and his slowly unravelling persona is both morbidly fascinating and emotionally devastating. And now on to the roles where Clooney was far less successful...