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LOS ANGELES -- This week there are four exceptional performances to check out. Two were Oscar nominated (George Clooney in The Descendants and Michelle Williams in My Week with Marilyn) and two could well have been (Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia and Charlize Theron in Young Adult).

Alexander Paynes The Descendants takes place in Hawaii, where Matt King (Clooney) heads a family that is preparing to sell their land for development, a deal that should make them rich. But theres no joy for him, because Matts wife lies in a coma from a boating accident and isnt likely to wake up. Now he must take care of his daughters, 10-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller) and her disaffected teenage sister, Alexandra (Shailene Woodley).

Worst, he finds out that his wife was cheating on him with a real-estate agent (Matthew Lillard).

Like in Paynes other films, Election, About Schmidt and Sideways, The Descendants is about American males adrift. A marvelous Clooney is able to make us forget his movie-star looks and charms to convey the trials of a man trying to find his place in the world.

I didnt think any actress could create a credible Marilyn Monroe, but Michelle Williams proved me wrong, a thousand-fold. In My Week with Marilyn she not only possesses the sexiness and sweetness of the Hollywood legend but creates a real person -- no easy trick.

The film, directed by Simon Curtis, has its own charms, telling the story of the unlikely meeting/clash of two showbiz titans -- Monroe and Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) -- for the tumultuous filming of The Prince and the Showgirl in 1956. Its based on two memoirs by Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), who was an assistant to Olivier. Clark claims to have had a brief affair with the star, who had just married playwright Arthur Miller.

Whats true or not doesnt really matter. The film captures the glamour and fun of the era which, like Marilyn, was a mixture of innocence and naughtiness. And also like Marilyn, it is impossible to ! take you r eyes off of Williams, whom I would have given the Oscar to. (Meryl Streep won for The Iron Lady.)

Theron should have gotten an Oscar nod for her role as a prom queen who never grew up in Jason Reitmans Young Adult. That also is the category for the fiction that Therons Mavis Gary writes.