In Alexander Payne's wonderful new movie "The Descendants," George Clooney plays Matt King, a middle-aged father and husband living in Hawaii, a lawyer, a descendant of Hawaiian royalty and a landowner whose family holds title to one of the state's last open spaces. As the movie begins, Matt's wife, Elizabeth (played, wordlessly, by Patricia Hastie), lies in a coma after a boating accident, and Matt learns that she had been having an affair. He's stunned, but he tries to do the right thing; later, when Elizabeth's distraught father blames Matt for his daughter's unhappiness, describing her as a faithful and loving wife, Matt swallows, almost imperceptibly, and lets it go. Clooney keeps the moment small, not drawing attention to it, but it's one of a hundred such moments that make up a portrait of Matt: flawed but determined, ever-beleaguered, utterly real.

This is Payne's specialty — darkly comic movies about flawed middle-aged men coping with crisis and taking stock ("Election," "About Schmidt," "Sideways") — but "The Descendants," based on Kaui Hart Hemmings' novel, is arguably his warmest film to date. And it showcases one of Clooney's finest screen performances. Looking handsome but not dashing (an ugly Hawaiian shirt goes a long way toward erasing Clooney's Cary Grant quality), he marches through the movie like a man discovering new territory. Matt's long been distant from his daughters (Alex, played by Shailene Woodley, is 17; Scottie, played by Amara Miller, is 10), describing himself in the movie's frequent voice-over as "the backup parent," and much of the pleasure of "The Descendants" is in watching him form a bond with the girls, particularly Alex. Woodley, a real find, plays the troubled teen as a flinty, thrill-seeking survivor not at all impressed with her dad. Matt at first has no idea how to talk to her — she's like an alien dropped into his house from the sky — but gradually learns.

Shot with affectionate naturalism by Phedon Papamichael (these people, even Clooney, never look like movie stars), with the wet green curves of Hawaii becoming a character in itself, "The Descendants" is peppered with strong supporting performances. Judy Greer, finally freed from romantic-comedy second-banana hell, is the puzzled wife of Elizabeth's lover; Beau Bridges is Matt's schmoozy cousin; Robert Forster is his grieving, angry father-in-law; Nick Krause is Alex's oddball boyfriend Sid, the kind of kid who says the things everyone else is thinking but wouldn't dream of saying. (He brings the movie an essential extra spice.) But it's Clooney and Woodley's movie, as they become a team before our eyes.

"The Descendants" has a wordless, beautiful final scene in which nothing, yet everything, happens; we leave these characters knowing that they're finally at home.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com