"Paradise can go fuck itself," George Clooney's familiar voice snarls over images of modern-day Hawaii at the start of Alexander Payne's bittersweet comedy "The Descendants," a well-acted but frustratingly simplistic exploration of the ties that bind - and sometimes constrict unless they're carefully monitored. "The Descendants" takes place on the islands; that's why Clooney's Matt King is trying to disabuse us of any dreamy notions we may have about a carefree existence under the palm trees. He wants to remind everyone that life is tough even when the skies are a blinding shade of blue and, in Matt's case, when you're fabulously (if stingily) wealthy and blessed with a beautiful (albeit fractured) family. Now, I already know, of course, that all that glitters is not gold. But I also know that beginning a film with expository voiceover is hardly an encouraging sign either.

As "The Descendants" opens, we learn that Matt's wife, Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie), is in a coma following a freak boating accident, leaving Matt to care for their two daughters. But Matt, a workaholic lawyer and the self-described "back-up parent," has no real feel for the job, demonstrated by both the ineffectual discipline leveled at 10-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller) and the utter contempt shown Matt by 17-year-old Alex (Shailene Woodley, TV's "The Secret Life of the American Teenager"). Matt fetched the troubled Alex from boarding school upon hearing from the doctors that Elizabeth won't be waking from her coma, hoping for some help with Scottie as well as some peacemaking and closure. But Alex has clear-cut reasons for her estrangement from her mother, and that information, devastating to Matt, sets "The Descendants" into motion.

Like Payne's previous films, 2002's feisty "About Schmidt" and 2004's overrated "Sideways," "The Descendants" morphs into a road movie of sorts, allowing characters to bond, rage, and test their mettle away from the safety of home while Matt prepares to confront his wife's lover, with the newly enthusiastic Alex as his sidekick. They cross paths with others along the way, like a pitch-perfect Robert Forster as Elizabeth's distraught father, seething with resentment and unafraid to place blame, and a very Jeff-like Beau Bridges as Matt's deceptively easygoing cousin who is also involved in Matt's big land-trust deal. That latter subplot is perhaps designed to illustrate Matt's inflexible nature and help him achieve the luxury of total evolution in 115 minutes, but it instead serves merely to confound with stretches of legalese and detract from the already underwritten main thread.

Payne, you may remember, won an Adapted Screenplay Oscar for "Sideways" and will, along with co-writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, probably again be nominated for this adaptation of Kaui Hart Hemmings' novel. But the script for "The Descendants" seems so utilitarian, relying more on telling than showing as people too often impart facts and feelings by shouting them at the comatose scapegoat, the latest in a long line of thinly sketched Payne women who exist simply for men to become better. (1999's "Election" remains Payne's best.) Interesting are the glimpses of day-to-day life in the 50th state, a location that is hardly ever used for anything other than its exoticism. But the Hawaii of the King family, while reliably postcard-gorgeous thanks to cinematographer Phedon Papamichael (and glaciers), is a rarefied one, pretty much exclusive to land barons with 25,000 virgin acres to offload.

The characters' emotional lives, however, are universal, intensifying the empathy we might feel for a bratty teen or a cuckold who must choose between revenge or respect, and the strength of "The Descendants" lies with its excellent cast. Erstwhile indie goofball Matthew Lillard acquits himself nicely as Matt's rival, and Judy Greer, typically cast as the wacky best friend, makes the most of her dramatic opportunity as Matt's counterpart in the adultery. (Alex's dopey friend Sid, played by Nick Krause, serves too conspicuously as comic relief/holy fool.) Woodley as the initially angry Alex is the standout, skillfully conveying that confusion common to sentient beings who are nonetheless still too young to articulate complex feelings. And though Clooney is as affecting as always, at this point he's barely able to suppress the uniquely charismatic je-ne-sais-quoi that makes him George Clooney. It's an enviable dilemma.