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TA support, privacy concerns discussed at Council

by Carolina Millan Ronchetti on

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Michael Paolucci
Michael Paolucci

Key issues at last Thursday’s SSMU Council included a motion of support for TAs in recent negotiations and proposed changes to how McGill reappoints senior administrators.

Council expanded on issues concerning the support of workers discussed by the General Assembly. In a demonstration of support for graduate students and in the interest of improving the quality of undergraduate education, the council unanimously passed a motion to support the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) in its current negotiations with the administration. Council members agreed to draft and send the administration an official letter vocalizing SSMU’s support for AGSEM’s bargaining priority.

AGSEM is currently engaged in negotiations with the administration and will be meeting with the provost this week to negotiate the number of TAs and the university’s commitment to providing paid training to first-time TAs, among other issues.

The Council also unanimously passed a resolution requesting that the SSMU Representative to the McGill Board of Governors make all reasonable efforts to amend university statutes so that the principal consults an advisory committee when recommending a reappointment or extension for the offices of provost, deputy provost, or vice-principal, not just before recommending a new appointment.

Issues of workers’ solidarity, which were discussed during the first SSMU General Assembly of the year, came up again at Council. The resolution in question emphasized soliciting various perspectives on union disputes, disseminating information to the student body, issuing a statement of support, and encouraging students to support strikers through varied methods, such as participating in picket lines and by petitioning the university. There was heavy debate on whether passing such a resolution would obligate SSMU to support all current and future unions in disputes. However, an amendment to remove a clause supporting future strikes was defeated.

During this discussion, guest speaker and AGSEM representative Jonathan Mooney brought to the attention of the Council the possibility that, once a union contract expires, the administration has the right to lock workers out and deny them re-entry as McGill employees. The resolution was then amended to include support for unions in a lockout and was successfully passed by council. 

The most contentious issue of the night arose when President Knight informed the council of Zach Newburgh’s recent request for SSMU’s membership list

Access to this list is every member’s right under stipulations laid out in the Quebec Companies Act. This act applies to SSMU, as SSMU is a non-profit corporation and accredited student association. As such, SSMU is legally obligated to provide the list regardless of privacy concerns. 

At the time of the meeting, SSMU president Maggie Knight had not received confirmation of Newburgh’s intentions for the list but noted that the former SSMU President had stated that his “rationale was not relevant.” Numerous members of the council expressed discomfort with the potential for privacy violations, pointing to Newburgh’s current employment with the social networking and employment website Jobbook.com.

According to both Knight and SSMU General Manager Pauline Gervais, this is the first time a SSMU membership list has been requested. When asked if there is an existing protocol to address misuse of the information, Knight explained that SSMU would have to take action but that it is too early to consider such options.

“I think it’s premature to speculate, given that I have received confirmation from Zach that he intends to use the list only for the purposes outlined in the act, and since any legal action would have to be evaluated based on the specific circumstances,” Knight said.

The council debated whether the student body should be informed of the situation by SSMU. Some members objected that such a course of action may lead to more requests for the list, raising further privacy concerns, while others noted that students should be alerted of the situation. No consensus was reached during the meeting.

News

Second SSMU strategic summit on tuition increases

by Bea Britneff on

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Sophie Silkes

 

Last Friday, SSMU hosted its second strategic summit, this time centred around tuition hikes—an issue pertinent to students in Quebec given the impending tuition hikes later in the year. 

This meeting was one in a series of strategic summits initiated by SSMU President Maggie Knight. Each summit is designed to address and discuss a different problem that affects SSMU, McGill University, and its students.  

Around 20 students arrived at  the meeting ready to learn about information on the upcoming 2012 tuition hikes. Facilitated by SSMU VP University Affairs Emily Yee Clare and VP External Affairs Joël Pedneault, the discussions that followed provided an opportunity both to get informed and to express opinions. 

Quebec currently has the lowest tuition in Canada, but undergraduate tuition will increase in the fall. 

“Starting next September, [Quebec] tuition will be going up $325 a year, over five years,” explained Pedneault. “This adds up to a 75 per cent tuition increase [over those five years].” 

Summit attendees discussed why tuition is being raised in the first place. Organizers cited a 2010 university funding plan published by Finances Quebec which estimated that universities in Quebec were underfunded by $620 million. Attendees asserted that the Quebec government is now using these numbers to justify the 2012 tuition hikes. 

 “These numbers are not calculated based on any need or debt of the institutions,” said a post-graduate student who attended the conference. “They are based on the average of what other students are paying across Canada.”

To some at the meeting, this reflected more of a thirst for money  than a legitimate shortage of funding, triggering further debates on transparency and university priorities. 

“If the tuition increases are approved by the provincial government and not McGill, are we questioning what [Quebec] is doing with the money or how McGill is spending the money?” another student asked.   

In most cases, decisions about the allocation of tuition fees and public money do not depend on the universities themselves. “All the money goes into one pot, and the government redistributes this money to universities using a funding formula,” Pedneault explained. 

  “McGill has been on the forefront of supporting tuition increases,” Pedneault added. “We need to think about that.”

The Quebec government, which announced the tuition hikes back in March, claims it will recycle a large amount of the money collected in the form of government grants and loans.  

However, Pedneault did not feel that additional government grants and loans would alleviate financial need. “Debt loads are only going to increase in the long term,” he said. 

Similarly, an attendee expressed concern that the tuition hikes would  squeeze the middle class. Many middle-class students find themselves in a tricky situation where they aren’t “poor enough” to be eligible for bursaries, and as a result, have to put themselves in large amounts of debt. Tuition increases might only worsen this problem. 

So far, proposed increases in tuition will only apply to in-province students. It has not yet been announced by how much out-of-province and international students’ tuitions will be altered.  

“The issues get really thorny when you talk about out-of-province and international students who pay a lot of money,” Pedneault said. “Some people will say, ‘Well those people are just going to leave the province anyway.'”

Pedneault predicted the Quebec government will not alter the out-of-province and international tuition too dramatically, if at all.

News

BMO releases economic projections

by Eric Mauser on

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BMO Capital Markets Economics, the economic research and analysis division of the Bank of Montreal, released their Canadian Economic Outlook last week. The document projects Canada’s economic situation for 2012 and the remainder of 2011.

The numbers predict that the loonie will fall by roughly seven cents when compared with the U.S. dollar, unemployment will remain at around seven per cent, and the economy will continue to grow at an annualized rate of about two per cent.

According to Professor Poschke of the McGill Economics Department, these numbers can indicate several things. For example, while unemployment is projected to increase slightly, it is important to understand what the increase means in context.

“Over the last 20 years, the average [unemployment rate] has been around eight per cent. Over the last 10 years, around seven per cent. So it’s worse than recently, but okay compared to longer-run Canadian history. Also, Canadian unemployment will probably remain below U.S. unemployment for quite some time. This is rare historically,” Poschke said.

As for the change in the exchange rate, it may actually be positive for the Canadian economy.

“When the Canadian dollar is strong, Canadian products are expensive. All this matters most relative to the U.S. Now that the loonie is a bit weaker, these exporters may be happier,” Poschke said.

Poschke noted, however, that the change in the exchange rate would also mean that Canadians traveling to the U.S. or purchasing U.S. goods would now be able to buy fewer goods than they had earlier this year.

Canada’s growth rate has been close to two per cent for several years. Although the growth rate did not change much, it is trending downward slightly, which is an important indicator.

“The trend also matters: there’s a negative trend. This reflects fear of a further slowdown or renewed recession in the U.S., which would strongly affect Canada because Canada exports a lot to the U.S., so nothing terrible, but a somewhat negative outlook,” Poschke said.

Poschke did remark that the BMO projections were some of the more pessimistic outlooks presented.

“Note that there are many sources of economic forecasts, and it’s not clear whether this one is the most credible one,” he said. “It has the merit of being recent.”

News

Arts Undergraduate Society talks frosh reform at meeting

by Hannah George on

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Alexandra Allaire

 

On Friday Sept. 30, the AUS held a Frosh town hall meeting on the topic of reforming Arts Frosh. Despite drawing few participants, the meeting went ahead with enthusiasm and provided an opportunity for dissatisfied students to come forward and share their experiences.

One attendee, a U0 Arts student who wished to remain anonymous, felt that as a 17-year-old he missed out on key parts of Frosh. Before buying his wristband, he noticed on the AUS website that Frosh events were not centred around alcohol, and decided to purchase an admission wristband. He was disappointed when, on the first evening event at Palais de Congres, he reached the front of the queue only to be told by a bouncer that 17-year-olds were not being let in because the club was too full. He urged AUS to “keep [frosh] good for the 18-year-olds, but at the same time allow for more inclusion of underage students, too.”

AUS President Jade Calver and the present committee members were keen to hear his feedback and were engaged throughout the discussion, encouraging him to point out all that he felt could be improved, as well as what was positive about the experience.

When talk turned to possible reformations of the system, the AUS VP Events, Jason Karmody, noted that this year AUS made conscious attempts for frosh to be more inclusive for underage students.

The focus of the discussion then moved to specific improvement suggestions, including “significantly cheaper” tickets solely for daytime events, and organizing separate ‘dry’ events without alcohol.

Calver indicated that not forewarning students that most Frosh events were alcohol-based was a mistake.

“That was an oversight on our part,” Calver said.

The student insisted that people should not have the same experience next year, and asked for a refund. On the Frosh website, alcohol is mentioned only under the FAQ section: “At no point will anyone ever be required to drink.”

“Frosh is designed for everyone to meet new people, have a good time, and ease their way into university, so we make sure that there are tons of ways for people to enjoy themselves be it with or without alcohol,” the website reads.

Calver indicated that in the future, the underage student’s situation would not repeat itself.

“I think we’d all agree on lower prices for under-agers,” Calver said.

News

IRSAM holds eventful Model UN

by Anand Bery on

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The International Relations Students’ Association of McGill (IRSAM) held its second annual International Relations Simulation (IRSim) Model United Nations conference last weekend.

In contrast to IRSAM’s larger conferences, which host delegates  from high schools or other universities, IRSim is the only annual Model United Nations conference at McGill that is both run and attended by McGill students.

“We started IRSim last year to give McGill students an opportunity to be delegates at McGill, and not have to [travel to other conferences at schools like Columbia],” Michael Tong, president of IRSAM, said.

Close to 90 students attended the conference in order to familiarize themselves with university level Model UN, a change for most from the high school style conferences.

Conference committees included both traditional governing bodies, such as the UN Security Council, and crisis-based task forces like a joint USA-Iran cabinet committee.

Keagan Tafler, IRSAM’s Vice-President of Delegation Affairs, highlighted the importance of exposing students, especially first years, to crisis-style simulations.

“Model UN at the high-school level is traditionally UN style, [where delegates represent countries],” Tafler said.  “A lot of university conferences are crisis-based conferences, where there’s one issue, and delegates represent characters rather than countries.”

In crisis-based committees, there is no set outcome of events. Conference organizers change the scenario in the committee in response to how negotiations between the two groups proceed.

“They deal with the problems as they’re presented to them,” Tafler explained.

Participants prepare not by learning about a specific event, but rather by learning more about their character and their political or ideological positions. In the USA-Iran Joint Committee, for example, participants represented high-ranking government officials from one of the two countries. They had to deal with crises like kidnapping of government officials, cyber attacks on nuclear facilities, and disturbed uranium stores following an earthquake. The unfolding of events could just as easily have transpired on an episode of 24.

Tafler and Tong also emphasized the diverse group of student attendees.

“The beauty of IRSim is it’s not just the ‘Model UN Club,'” Tong, who is in the faculty of science, said. “I’ve processed applications [across a broad range of faculties],” Tafler added.

Nicholas Ellery, U0 arts, participated in this year’s IRSim. He took part in Model UN while in high school and appreciated the opportunity to learn the differences between that and university level Model UN.

“[IRSim] relates much more to the other university conferences, which if I were to participate in as a delegate I’d need to be more accustomed to,” Ellery said. “It serves a good purpose in that sense.”

Ellery also appreciated being able to learn from older participants, something he didn’t have the opportunity to do while in high school.

“It’s really different for me because I started in [Grade 12]. I’m used to being the most experienced in terms of age and [this was quite a different experience].” 

News

Montreal-area hospital hit by antibiotic-resistant bug

by Jonny Newburgh on

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The Montreal Jewish General Hospital has been working over the last year to contain Canada’s first large hospital outbreak of a drug- resistant strain of bacteria. While Klebsiella pneumonia Carbapensemase-producing Klebsiella pneumonia (KPC-Kp) is new in Canada, some American hospitals in New York, Baltimore, and North Carolina have been fighting KPC-Kp for more than 10 years. The strain first appeared in the United States in 1999.

Dr. Mark Miller, the head of the JeHG’s division for infectious diseases, presented on the first Canadian breakout of KPC-Kp at the 51st Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in Chicago on Sept. 18. According to his report, the bacteria began to spread in August, 2010. Within only a few weeks Miller and his team of doctors and nurses managed to get the bacteria’s transmission relatively under control. Researchers first examined bacteria from a patient’s tracheostomy culture and soon realized that it was resistant to common antibiotics. Further investigation led them to realize that they were handling KPC-Kp, and they immediately implemented appropriate measures to limit transmission.

Klebsiella pneumonia (Kp) lives in the human intestine. Healthy people can carry the bacteria without symptoms, but can cause pneumonia or infections in hospitals, where many people with weakened immune systems congregate.  When the bacteria produce Klebsiella pneumonia Carbapensemase (KPC), doctors really begin to worry, because they become resistant to the traditional methods of treatment. Only two antibiotics can be used to treat the bacteria, but patients with certain illnesses or pre-existing conditions may not be able to take the necessary medicine. “It’s a major concern,” Miller said. “There are real limitations in what you can be treated with.”

Doctors at the hospital first began by isolating and actively monitoring affected individuals. Unfortunately, transmission continued, and only subsided once a dedicated quarantine ward was opened. In total, 27 patients contracted KPC-Kp, but only four or five patients actually fell ill with symptoms. 

“As far as we know, there is nobody who died directly from KPC-Kp,” Miller said.  “The antibiotics to which most of our isolates were susceptible included colisitin, tigecycline and gentamicin,” Victor Leung, a co-author of the study presented at the ICAAC, said. “Unfortunately, each of these antibiotics has side effects.”

Since the end of the study in June 2011, there have been seven new cases of patients colonized by the bacteria. Dr. Miller suggested that this is only the “beginning of a problem that will be with us indefinitely.”

Nonetheless, he hopes to prevent the spread and get the number of infected patients down to zero. This bacteria is causing hysteria, in part, explained Miller, because of its relation to a relatively recent discovery of a bacteria that is resistant to all antibiotics. This superbug, the New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM), was discovered in India in 2008. Studies have since shown that NDM-producing Klebsiella pneumonia (NDM-Kp) can be found all over India, and this, Miller cautioned, is a major source of concern because of the popularity of travel to India for cheaper medical care. Doctors are worried that patients will bring the bacteria back home with them. Fortunately, there have been no outbreaks of the dangerous NDM-Kp as of yet in Canada. As to how the KPC-producing Klebsiella pneumonia got into Jewish General, doctors simply do not know.

They have, however, implemented strategies for managing future outbreaks. Leung propsed a universal process for screening all patients.

“[There’s a] need for a systematic laboratory detection method so that patients who are colonized or infected with Enterobacteriaceae expressing KPC can be identified and placed on contact precautions to prevent further transmission while in hospital,” Leung said. 

News

BC student tragically killed in mysterious shooting

by Eric Mauser on

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Maple Batalia, a 19-year-old Simon Fraser University student, was shot and killed in a parking garage early Wednesday morning. An outpouring of emotion across Canada followed her unexpected and mysterious death.

“On Wednesday Sept. 28, 2011 at 1:10 a.m., Surrey RCMP responded to several 911 calls regarding multiple shots fired in the area of the SFU Campus / Central City,” read a statement on the RCMP British Columbia’s website.

The victim was later identified as Maple Batalia. 

SFU students immediately expressed outrage over her death and fear that such a violent act could occur so close to campus.  

A spokesperson for the RCMP stated that while the shooting occured within metres of SFU’s campus, there was no reason to believe that other students were in danger.  

The outpouring of grief from those who knew Batalia was immediate and almost constant since her death was announced on Wednesday.  Many publicly expressed their sadness on a Facebook page entitled “RIP Maple Batalia.” As of Saturday, the group had over 10,000 members.

“You were one of my first friends when I first came to QE,” read a post by Natalia Anthonisz on the  Facebook page.

“You made me feel so welcome, and I’m so thankful to have known you! I always looked forward to seeing you in art every day; you were such an amazing person and an incredible artist. I know you’re in a better place now. Rest in peace,” Anthonisz’s comment continued.

Comments also came from many who never knew Batalia personally, but were simply shocked by her death.

Batalia’s father recently said in a television interview that he would wear only black until his daughter’s murderer was found and justice was done.   

As of Monday, Batalia’s killer has not been indentified. Batalia’s ex-boyfriend, Gurjinder “Gary” Dhaliwal, had been taken into cutsody on unrelated charges. He had reportedly been harassing the victim before her death.

Arts & Entertainment

Reality television creates ethical conundrums

by Liya Adessky on

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Reality shows have become a staple of television programming over the past few years. They range from survival-of-the-fittest to toddler beauty pageants, and they’re far from waning in popularity. The Real Housewives franchise, for one, has been the crown jewel in Bravo’s lineup for quite some time, spawning spinoffs, profitable endorsement deals, and many a talk show segment. Its stars battle it out for ratings on screen, but continue their feuds and over-the-top theatrics off camera as well. These escapades have been making headlines for some time, but it’s the most recent scandal that’s captured the public’s attention in a tragic exposure of the truth behind the magic of reality television.

Russell Armstrong, husband of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast member Taylor Armstrong, committed suicide in mid-August. He was found to have been in financial ruin, and slowly but surely, details of his horrific abuse of Taylor leaked out. It’s no secret that reality television is edited for dramatic effect, but it’s a problem when the edits obstruct crimes from being brought to light. Just how much should the public be allowed to see when tragedy strikes?

Many celebrity gossip sites have stated multiple times that Taylor told other cast members and, potentially, television executives, about the abuse she endured at her husband’s hands. This abuse supposedly went on for most of their six-year marriage, and was well documented by Taylor herself, through photographs and conversations with friends. The apparent brush-off of the abuse by those involved in Real Housewives is equally terrible. Yes, one can argue for letting families deal with their drama behind closed doors, but that should be reserved for arguments about overspending and cheating spouses. Physical and verbal abuse is very serious. There’s no excuse for anyone to avoid reporting extensive spousal abuse; Taylor made multiple trips to the hospital due to injuries she sustained from her husband. While her doctor had a hand in failing to take action, there’s little chance that those filming the show didn’t know enough about the situation to report it. Cameras commonly film the goings-on of cast members, and even if they never captured the physical abuse taking place, it’s unlikely they never saw the consequences of it.

The handling of Armstrong’s suicide is another ethical nightmare. Details of his suicide are all over the media and Taylor herself has leaked images of his abuse to the press. Profitable interviews are being auctioned off to the highest bidder. The worst part of all of this is that Russell and Taylor have a young daughter, who’s going to have to deal with this media coverage during one of the worst periods in her life. Despite how awful Armstrong may have been, he was still a girl’s father, and the handling of his suicide and its fallout is going to hurt her, in the short run and when it comes back to haunt her when she grows up. 

Reality television isn’t going anywhere soon, and most of it is completely harmless. But if this story serves to teach us anything, it’s that cast members are still real people with real problems. The ethics around reality television mostly take a back seat to profitable drama, but a line needs to be drawn somewhere, and soon.

Arts & Entertainment

INNI: getting intimate with Sigur Rós

by Wendy Speakman on

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onethirtybpm.com

 

Dark, ominous, and haunting aren’t the words one would first associate with the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós, but their new concert film, INNI, confronts viewers with something far from the spirited, jovial, and delightfully eccentric band that many know. Vincent Morisset, the film’s Quebecois director, projected the original digital footage of the concert and re-filmed it on a vintage camera, providing INNI with a grainy quality and overtly dark sensibility.

During the two-minute instrumental introduction to the opening song “ný batterí,” Morisset hits the audience with an array of mysterious moving textures, as well as fragmented shots of instruments and pieces of stage equipment. If an audience member had not intentionally gone to see a movie about Sigur Rós, they would be far from convinced that the film was even about a band. Even as lead singer Jónsi Birgisson’s voice comes in, disjointed shots of band members’ faces fade into one another, blurring the lines between real and imaginary, and demanding that the audience connect with the sound rather than the image.

The first song is almost uncomfortably intimate until a colour segment of the band on National Public Radio (NPR) in the 1990s breaks the tension. Although very short, the clip is enormously significant. NPR’s DJ asks the band if they were ever “normal,”  or if they always sounded the way that they do. In addition to being comically awkward, the clip also visually confirms the film’s subject by showing all four members of the band in one frame. Suddenly, the rare access to Sigur Rós via this unsettling cinematic composition feels like a privilege. There is a long awkward pause, and then Morisset cuts to the title of the film and quickly back to black and white for the next song.

Morisett plays with this sense of intimacy throughout the entire film by pinning old colour footage against the dark live show. The audience gains inside access to the band, but sometimes this is more disorienting and overwhelming than exciting. In the black and white footage, the members of the band look like characters in a movie. Jonsi in particular exudes a Dracula-like aura in his knee-length coat and slicked back hair. But in an ill-fitting polo and cargo pants in the flashback clips, the frontman looks more like our geeky garage band friend than a commanding cinematic persona. The contrast between the two opposing film scenarios and the absence of conventional wide-pan shots help the audience engage with the music, as opposed to just the image of Sigur Rós.

The film showcases nine uninterrupted tracks, save for a couple rare video clips and broken-English sound bites. While the picture is artfully weathered, the sound is clear and resonant. The set list is comprised of songs from four of Sigur Rós’ studio albums. A high point in the film is the song “Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur” (With Me a Lunatic Sings) from the album Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust. Thanks to two pianos, an array of percussion, and a short but heartwarming prelude of a young Sigur Rós setting up for a gig, “Inni Mér’s” upbeat sound emphatically stands out from its darker surroundings.

INNI is an exceptionally thought-provoking concert film in terms of cinematic form and style. Viewers are privileged and plagued by an intensely personal perspective. But in general, the film presents a unique and special perspective of Sigur Rós. Albeit uncomfortable at times, we cannot escape from the intimate world that Morisset creates. In the end, do we really want to?

Arts & Entertainment

Toronto International Film Festival tidbits

by Emma Hambly on

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 Twixt 

Like a fantastical nightmare cut short by wakefulness, Francis Ford Coppola’s ghost story Twixt gives us a wild, imaginative ride but cuts to black before it all makes sense. 

The protagonist is Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer), a bargain-basement horror writer making the rounds on his latest book tour. He arrives in Swan Valley, a town with a seven-faced clock tower and gaggles of Goths, but doesn’t leave as quickly as he expects. He stays to write a new story about the town’s recent murder victim—a young girl with a stake plunged into her heart. The film bounces between the daytime—sequences of writing, investigating, and collaborating with the police chief—and the night.  

At night, Hall is pulled into a dream version of Swan Valley, painted in greyscale and violent reds, and populated by ghosts. The writer meets V (Elle Fanning), a porcelain-skinned vampire with far too many secrets, and the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe. 

The dreams soon become nightmares. Hall is charged with solving the girl’s murder, chasing down a ghastly serial killer, and fighting the darkness growing inside him.  

Twixt is original, eerie, and thought-provoking. But viewers beware; it ends too quickly. The plot is left unfinished, unsatisfying, and underwhelming. This film deserved a satisfying finale. Instead, we get a conclusion that slips through the cracks like a hazy dream in the morning.

      

Albert Nobbs  

Albert Nobbs has all the makings of an excellent period drama, with a twist. The cinematography is stunning, the costumes are impeccable, the plot rife with drama—and the main character is a woman masquerading as a man. Albert, played by Glenn Close, takes on the role of a man in order to get ahead in a male-dominated society. She works as a servant in a posh hotel, dreaming of one day owning her own business.  

Nobbs would be a strong, intriguing character, if it weren’t nearly impossible to sympathize with her; and therein lies the fatal flaw of the film. Around everyone else, Nobbs is a reserved man with no sense of humour. When we’re first introduced to Albert Nobbs the woman, we see that she is a snivelling wretch terrified of being discovered, and obsessed with counting her money.  

This disconnect causes the film’s impact to fall flat. Save for one heartwarming scene where she dons a dress for the first time in decades, Glenn Close does nothing with the role.  

Albert Nobbs is wrenchingly close to being excellent. Mia Wasikowska and Janet McTeer deliver powerful performances as women with actual personalities. The ensemble cast—the hotel’s staff and clients—is superb. Love, drama, and intrigue abound. However, it just goes to show that a compelling protagonist can mean the difference between absolutely and almost outstanding. 

        

The Descendants 

Hawaii is no paradise for Matt King (George Clooney), an estranged husband and father faced with two daunting tasks. One: he must inform friends and family that his wife will not recover from a boating accident. Two: he must decide what to do with the valuable plot of land he’s inherited from his royal ancestor.  

As he navigates these burdens, Matt has to reconcile with what’s left of his family: two troubled, distant daughters. As he begins to repair their relationship, Matt’s daughter Alex reveals that Matt’s wife was cheating on him. The film becomes an odyssey—Matt’s quest to find the man his wife was planning to leave him for.  

Along the journey through lush Hawaiian islands, Matt does his best to make amends with his daughters, and deal with the death of his wife. There are dark emotions at play here, yet The Descendants manages to blend genuine laugh-out-loud moments with touching scenes. The story is utterly believable, anchored by powerful performances by Shailene Woodley as Alex, and Clooney, who makes a flawed, stressed man’s struggle both heart-warming and heartbreaking. 

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