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LOS ANGELES This week there are three exceptional performances to check out. Two were Oscar nominated (George Clooney in The Descendants and Michelle Williams in My Week with Marilyn) and one could well have been (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).

As 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 your eyes off of Williams, whom I would! have gi ven 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.

At 37, she is divorced and drinking too much, and the series of books she writes is coming to an end. So in an act of desperation she comes up with an idea to reclaim her high-school beau (Patrick Wilson) and live happily ever after. Never mind that hes married and the father of a new baby girl. Returning to her hometown of Mercury from Minneapolis (mini-apple, as the locals call it), she discovers that some old cuts never heal.

No longer the bitchy prom queen, she finds she has more in common with Matt (Patton Oswalt), who was an outcast in Mavis high-school class. In school, he was beaten and crippled by a bunch of jocks who thought he was gay.

Young Adult, written by Diablo Cody (Juno), is ultimately a pretty dark comedy, but Oswalt is first rate, and Theron, who took a risk playing such an unlikable character, delivers a terrific performance.