Matt King (George Clooney) is a wealthy land baron living in Hawaii, working as a lawyer but living a modest existence balancing work and home life. When his wife Elizabeth suffers a boating accident, which leaves her in a coma on life support, it is up to Matt to break the news to his daughters that their mother will die and try to bond with them through the toughest of times. Add to that the revelation that his wife had been having an affair, we watch as Matt, his daughters and a sweet young man called Sid try to track down his wife's and their mother's lover to tell him she's dying.

It's a bit of a kooky story, as you would expect from Alexander Payne, director of such indie flicks as Sideways and About Schmidt – there's waves of comedy, comic relief if you will (cue Clooney's comedic eyebrows and 'running' in moccasins), as the story is generally one that is sad. We see emotion from Clooney that we haven't experienced since the days of E.R, and the supporting cast of his difficult daughters Alex and Scotty, Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller matches his performance entirely as Matt's lack of parenting shines through their utter disrespect for any rules he lays out. I also can't leave out Alex's friend Sid, Nick Krause who seems a doped up drop out, but actually has his own issues going on that make sense of his presence with the family during their soul discovering trip.

Clooney has already won the Golden Globe for his role in The Descendants, and I'd be very surprised if he didn't pick up the Oscar at the Academy Awards in February, I'm just surprised that Shailene Woodley didn't get a nod for her supporting role, she was fantastic and is able to portray all the emotions a teenage girl is going through watching a dying parent drift away from them.

There's a lesson for us all in this movie, whether you're a parent, a son, daughter, a husband or a wife; the moral of the story – do not take anyone for granted.

A must see, The Descendants is in cinemas now.