Suburbicon

Suburbicon

Starring Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Oscar Isaac, Noah Jupe

Directed by George Clooney

The Story:
In the idyllic small town of Suburbicon in 1959, the town is shook when the first African American family moves in, resulting in the townspeople becoming an unrelenting mob who stands outside their house day and night making noises and treating them like garbage, saying they're ruining their perfect town.

Meanwhile, Suburbicon residents Gardner (Matt Damon), his wife Rose (Julianne Moore), her twin sister Margaret (also Moore) and young son Nicky (Noah Jupe) are being held up by two thugs.  The family is chloroformed, and when Nicky comes to in the hospital, he finds that his mother has died.  Margaret moves in in hopes of giving Nicky a more normal life, but things start spiraling downhill fast, causing Nicky to doubt everyone around him.  Things only get worse when insurance claims investigator Bud Cooper (Oscar Isaac) visits, with questions surrounding Rose's death.  All is not well in Suburbicon.

The Synopsis:
"Suburbicon" is simply this: a mess.  It tries to tell two different stories, but never really develops either one.  It's like watching a series on television but having it get canceled halfway through, leaving you wondering what you were just watching.  This is mostly due to George Clooney's odd directing, and also the fact that the script was written by two different teams: Joel and Ethan Coen, and Clooney and Grant Heslov.  One pair focused on the crime, the other on the red herring, but both were left incomplete.

First there's Clooney and Heslov's take on racism in suburban America in the late 50s, which is something that's been chronicled and discussed for decades.  Here, it seems like a big afterthought, as we never really meet the African American family (we see the son interacting with Nicky, and the wife trying to buy milk that inexplicably cost $20, but never hear a word from the husband).  The only possible reason for having this story is to show that white people can be evil, and African Americans can be innocent, and seems almost like a slap in the face to the community.  We see how the townspeople act toward the family, and it's truly maddening, but there's never a clear resolution or even a reason it has to be included in the first place.

The second story is the heart of the film, a heart in dire need of a transplant.  In what is the case of mistaken trailer, the film is something totally different than what the trailer advertised.  It was supposed to be a dark comedy, but there's nothing really to laugh at.  It was supposed to have a hero in Matt Damon's Gardner, but he turns out to be a slimy snake in the grass.  In fact, there's no real character to root for here, except for the young Nicky, who we see experience things through his eyes for a little bit before moving onto something else.  The story is disjointed, the plot is insane, and the acting is subpar at best.  The only shining light is Oscar Isaac's performance, who is so off the wall it seemed that even he knew how insane this story was - and no one else did.  It was pretentious and acted on itself, and pretty much every cast member was in on it.  It was too serious to be funny, too funny to be serious, and a total misfire from George Clooney.

The Summary:
It's very hard to talk about a film that doesn't make a lot of sense, and that's what "Suburbicon" was - a film that didn't make a lick of sense, wanting to tell two different stories but failing on both ends.

The Score: D-