I have a problem with George Clooney. I may be to blame, I may not be the only one to blame. I was never excited about his acting performances. All the less so as the director, and this lack of enthusiasm was only accentuated by watching ‘Suburbicon‘, his 2017 film. The problem is that I fail to identify a precise reason for my indifference. Both as an actor and as a director, Clooney seems to do everything according to the book. He was born maybe half a century too late for the Cary Grant-like roles that filled his acting career, but he is still impressive in physique, expressiveness and charisma. And yet, I can’t sympathize with the characters he plays. The same goes for the movies he directs. ‘Suburbicon‘ is based on a screenplay written in 1986 by the Coen brothers, one that they never brought to screen. The film brings together a gallery of formidable talent. The visual look is signed by Robert Elswit, an Oscar-winning cinematographer, and browsing through the stills after watching the film, I was able to appreciate even more the quality of the framing, the composition, the colors. Everything seems OK, ‘Suburbicon‘ is not a bad movie at all, but it is a movie that left me completely indifferent.
One of the problems in my opinion is the script. Clooney and his colleagues took on a typical story of the Coen brothers, about a seemingly peaceful American family, in which horror gradually creeps in and corruption caused by financial problems and illicit love affairs takes over the heroes in a spiral descending into dementia, and placed it against the background, or rather alongside a racial conflict in America in the late 1950s. It is based on a real case in a ‘model community’ that was trying to maintain its ‘homogeneity’ by discouraging and even resorting to violence against those who did not meet their criteria of ‘racial purity’. Two families, one white, the other Afro-American, are separated at first by a symbolic fence between meadows, then the fence rises, when the citizens of the city try to ghettoize the intruders, and the only ones who do not care about the conflicts of the adults are the two kids in the families who share their passion for baseball. The children’s perspective is one of the beautiful ideas of the script, but otherwise the stories are not connected at all.
Hollywood first-rate actors Matt Damon and Julianne Moore play roles that fit the overall level of the film. OK creations but which will not remain among the best of their filmography, despite the fact that the roles are generous as text. Damon is a father whose world is apparently devastated by the intrusion of criminals who kill his wife. He quickly consoles himself with her twin sister, and the couple turns out not to be exactly what they seem. As in many of the Coen brothers’ scripts, the appearances camouflage a thick layer of sordid corruption. Unlike the films directed by them, George Clooney fails to turn his characters into centers of interest, which would attract sympathy or repulsion. And Matt Damon as his father and Julianne Moore in a double role are unexpectedly tern. The child’s angle of view makes the plot be perceived in the key of horror movies – not only because of non-negligible amount of red fluids spilled on screen, but especially because of the psychological perspective which leads to the viewers’ empathising with the situation in which there the boy gradually understands that those who should protect him were in fact hostile to him. Unfortunately, too many details are dull and devoid of energy and emotion. ‘Suburbicon‘, with all the good intentions and cinematic professionalism of its directors, is a missed opportunity to make a much better film.