Suburbicon is the latest film directed by George Clooney, and is the result of an original Coen Brothers script combined with a screenplay written by Clooney too. These two storylines clash against each other in a film that aims to capture the ugliness and hypocrisy of suburbia, whilst attempting to pay homage to other Coen Brothers works such as Fargo, True Grit and The Big Lebowski.
The film begins with a commercial for the utopian community known as Suburbicon: a picturesque neighbourhood for perfect white collar American families. It’s a place where nothing out of the ordinary ever happens… at least until a family of colour move into the neighbourhood. The arrival of the Meyers family brings great shock to the residents of Suburbicon, as ‘nothing like this happens here’. The audience is then introduced to the Lodge family: gardner (Matt Damon), his physically disabled wife Rose (Julianne Moore), their son Nicky (Noah Jupe) and Rose’s sister Margaret (also played by Moore). Moments after seeing the Lodge family coexist as the perfect nuclear family, they experience a home invasion and are assaulted by two Mafia thugs (Glenn Fleshler and Alex Hassel).
After the invasion, Rose dies and Margaret moves in permanently, with the pretense that ‘Nicky needs a mother.’ Margaret swiftly asserts herself as the matriarch of the Lodge family. While Margaret enjoys playing house with Gardner and the other housewives of Suburbicon, Nicky becomes suspicious of her relationship with Gardner and their aloof attitudes towards solving his mother’s death. As tension grows further between Nicky, Gardner and Margaret, the dark underbelly of Suburbicon is exposed, revealing infidelity, insurance fraud schemes, overt racism and murder.
The ending for Surburbicon is ambiguous at best. Without revealing any spoilers, Suburbicon ends in a manner that asks more questions than it answers: all loose ends remain unravelled and unresolved. Suburbicon endeavours to explore themes such as hypocrisy and racism through the friendship between Nicky and Andy, the son of the Meyers family. The plotline concerning the Meyers family is, at best, a gratuitous reminder of the racist undertones of the 1950’s and a subtle nod to recent US racial tensions in Charlottesville.
Highlights of Suburbicon included the costume and set design, exquisite special effects, acting from Oscar Isaac, as well as a stunning orchestral soundtrack composed by Alexandre Desplat. However, this reliance on aesthetic effects and design to support the lacklustre plot was a meagre attempt to convince the audience that Suburbicon was a substantial film. Much like other works from the Coen Brothers, Suburbicon aspires to be a gritty dark comedy, but this film misses the mark entirely, instead falling into the bland, forgettable void of suburbia. It’s one of Clooney’s most ambitious directorial works, but it is a far cry from the films where he stands in front of the camera.
