Southeastern Film Critics Association honors 'Descendants'

Fox Searchlight

George Clooney (from left), Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller star in "The Descendants."

In its 20th annual awards voting, the Southeastern Film Critics Association — an organization with members who represent electronic and print media outlets (including The Commercial Appeal) in nine states — this week named "The Descendants" the best film of 2011.

"The Descendants" also took the top award in the Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay categories.

Currently at the Malco Cordova Cinema and the Ridgeway Four, the film stars George Clooney as a Hawaiian lawyer coping with the accumulating pressures of a family trust, a comatose wife and a pair of increasingly independent daughters.

In what may be a somewhat controversial choice, the group gave its seventh annual Wyatt Award, which recognizes a film that "best embodies the spirit of the South," to "The Help," the dramedy about race relations in segregated 1960s Mississippi. "Our online discussions in the past weeks proved quite passionate, both for and against 'The Help,'" said SEFCA president Curt Holman of the newsweekly Atlanta Creative Loafing. "But the fact that (the film) cracked our list of Top 10 Best Films testifies to its enthusiastic support by a majority."

The Wyatt runner-up was "Undefeated," the made-in-Memphis Manassas High School football documentary. It was followed in voting by "The Tree of Life," which — for all its digressions to outer space and the prehistoric past — takes place primarily in Texas. The Wyatt Award is named for Nashville Tennessean film critic Gene Wyatt, who died in 2004.

Forty-seven film journalists in Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Virginia and North and South Carolina participated in SEFCA voting. The ballots were tabulated Sunday.

Following "The Descendants," the SEFCA Top 10 included, in descending order, "The Artist," "Hugo," "Moneyball," "The Tree of Life," "Drive," "Midnight in Paris," "Win Win," "War Horse" and "The Help."

Other winners include: Best Actress, Meryl Streep ("The Iron Lady"); Best Supporting Actor, Christopher Plummer ("Beginners"); Best Supporting Actress, Janet McTeer ("Albert Nobbs"); Best Ensemble ("The Help"); Best Director, Martin Scorsese ("Hugo"); Best Original Screenplay (Woody Allen, "Midnight in Paris"); Best Documentary ("Project Nim"); Best Foreign-Language Film (Iran's "A Separation"); Best Animated Film ("Rango"); and Best Cinematography ("The Tree of Life").

For more on the SEFCA awards, visit The Commercial Appeal film blog, TheBloodshotEye.com.

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