The movie “The Descendants”, which was nominated for five Academy Awards and won the award for best writing-adapted screenplay, is one of the best movies to tackle estate planning issues in quite some time. The movie contains a thorough discussion of advance healthcare directives, living wills, and their real life application. The movie’s lead character, Matt King, played by George Clooney, is the trustee of a trust which will soon come to an end because of an arcane rule of law known as “The Rule Against Perpetuities.” The movie generally is about the fracturing and healing which takes place within families. What is interesting to us is that the plot is wrapped around actual estate planning issues. [Spoiler alert, if you haven’t seen the film, you may to want to read the rest of the newsletter later.]