VOA标准英语2011--Man Struggles with Comatose Wife, Feisty

Man Struggles with Comatose Wife, Feisty Teen in 'The Descendants'

Movie stars and fans descend² on Toronto every September for the Canadian city's annual international film festival. One of this year's most acclaimed³ films, The Descendants, stars George Clooney.
"I'm the back-up parent - the understudy - and with Elizabeth, my wife, in the hospital, my daughters are testing me," notes Matt King, a Honolulu attorney in a family with roots in Hawaii dating back to the mid-1800s. The view out his window is what most mainlanders consider an island paradise, but Matt is in personal hell: his wife is in a terminal coma¹ and their teenaged daughter Alex is being …well, a teenager.
MATT: "I have to go around and tell people what's happening …family and a few close friends."
ALEX: "I don't want to talk about mom with anyone."
MATT: "Look, whatever you two fought about, you have to drop it. Grow up."
ALEX: "You really don't have a clue, do you? Dad, mom was cheating on you."
Just when he thought things couldn't get worse, Matt learns of his dying wife's infidelity and becomes determined⁴ to find "the other man."
"Who is he? I'd like to know who the guy is that my wife was …seeing," Matt tells his daughter.
George Clooney came to the 36th annual Toronto International Film Festival with two films. He directed and co-wrote the scathing⁵ political drama "The Ides of March." But Clooney says, for The Descendants, he was happy to turn those tasks over to Alexander Payne.
"It's such a well-written part and such a good director that it made it easy as an actor," Clooney says. "I didn't have to think as a director at all. You just put yourself in his hands.
"When you see the film, the thing that is Alexander's specialty⁶ is his ability to switch on a dime⁷ from funny to really sad," he adds. "It's really hard to do well. And it's hard as an actor to judge that. Only he knows where he wants it to be so you really just have to go 'you tell me when I've gone too far or not far enough.'"
After his first films were set in his native Omaha in the American Midwest, Alexander Payne took audiences to California wine country in the Oscar-winning hit Sideways. Speaking to reporters at the Toronto festival, Payne explained why he felt The Descendants, adapted from a novel by Hawaiian author Kauai Hart Hemmings, had to be filmed on that island state.
"Shooting in Hawaii is one of the reasons I wanted to make this film …and not just for the obvious reasons - the sun and surf and all of that," explains Payne. "My previous visits to Hawaii had taught me that there's a very interesting and complex social fabric⁸ there that I wanted to get to know a little bit more …as much as I could …and try to represent it faithfully on screen."
Payne avoids the usual tourist destinations in Hawaii and focuses instead on things that people who live there would recognize including …and especially, he says …the music.
"It was my idea early on that, given how much Hawaiian music there is, it would be inelegant of me not to have a soundtrack comprised entirely⁹ of Hawaiian music," notes the director. "I thought that would be a good challenge to make that work …to take largely pre-existing Hawaiian music."
The Descendants arrives at theaters in November, but it comes out of Toronto with a strong "buzz" as a major contender in the upcoming awards season.

1 coma   

n.昏迷，昏迷状态

参考例句：

• The patient rallied from the coma.病人从昏迷中苏醒过来。
• She went into a coma after swallowing a whole bottle of sleeping pills.她吃了一整瓶安眠药后就昏迷过去了。

2 descend   

vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降

参考例句：

• I hope the grace of God would descend on me.我期望上帝的恩惠。
• We're not going to descend to such methods.我们不会沦落到使用这种手段。

3 acclaimed   

adj.受人欢迎的

参考例句：

• They acclaimed him as the best writer of the year. 他们称赞他为当年的最佳作者。
• Confuscius is acclaimed as a great thinker. 孔子被赞誉为伟大的思想家。

4 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

5 scathing   

adj.（言词、文章）严厉的，尖刻的；不留情的adv.严厉地，尖刻地v.伤害，损害（尤指使之枯萎）( scathe的现在分词)

参考例句：

• a scathing attack on the new management 针对新的管理层的猛烈抨击
• Her speech was a scathing indictment of the government's record on crime. 她的演讲强烈指责了政府在犯罪问题上的表现。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 specialty   

n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长

参考例句：

• Shell carvings are a specialty of the town.贝雕是该城的特产。
• His specialty is English literature.他的专业是英国文学。

7 dime   

n.（指美国、加拿大的钱币）一角

参考例句：

• A dime is a tenth of a dollar.一角银币是十分之一美元。
• The liberty torch is on the back of the dime.自由火炬在一角硬币的反面。

8 fabric   

n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织

参考例句：

• The fabric will spot easily.这种织品很容易玷污。
• I don't like the pattern on the fabric.我不喜欢那块布料上的图案。

9 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。