Don't pay attention to the critics on this one. It's an absolute delight of a flick for pre-Oscar season nuts like us.
Suburbicon takes two stories and meshes them into one, though the synthesis isn't quite inspired. Think Stepford Wives meets mob-affiliated home-invasion thriller. The bare bones story is that of the Myers (?) family, consisting of a black man and woman and their young son; their presence serves little narrative purpose other than to demonstrate the horrors of Suburbicon, the all-white paradise of Trump's America. Oops, I'm sorry, I meant 1959 America, when America was "great" to begin with. There's a difference, right? Only the day after the Myers move to town, the mailman starts spreading the word, and neighbors begin picketing their property. The neighborhood decrees privacy fences will be installed around their yard. Groups of chanting malcontents gather on the street, shouting insults and appropriating spirituals to taunt the family. Ultimately, the rioters, despite halfhearted attempts by police to restrain them, attack the house, burn the car, and terrorize the family.
But their son makes tentative friends with another young boy, the white boy whose backyard mirrors their own. That boy, young Nicky, has family problems of his own, and though his skin grants him salvation from community bigotry, he goes through another kind of hell, and it is this that the film centers on.
Matt Damon, the patriarch of this family, plays a weak and desperate sort of suburban white-collar worker. He spends his days in an office pumping away on stress-relief squeezers, and it seems he has gotten terribly involved with "the mob" from another city. He lives with his infirm wife (Julianne Moore) and her sister (also Julianne Moore, praise be to Jesus), and their relationship is only barely introduced before their home is victimized one night. Two thieves appear and molest the family, tying them to kitchen chairs and chloroforming them before supposedly robbing them; they end up murdering the wife/mother Julianne Moore in front of little distressed Nicky.
I don't want to spoil anything, because half the joy of the film is its ability to story-tell. Nicky is the only sympathetic character -- apart from the Myers family -- and his ability to observe the corrupt dealings of adults informs our understanding of the evil at work in white suburbia. The white people are all variously destroyed by an effort to perfect their lives: through order and sense, through money, through status. Well, not "all", because of course the general population lives on to spin their own story. The final shot is of media interviewing "bystanders" who are declaring the Myers family responsible for the violence in their midst. Survivors and victors get to determine history.
Director George Clooney isn't making a treatise here on racial dynamics or white morality. He isn't making a statement on feminist culture or domestic patriarchy. These elements are present, of course, and arguably make up the meat of the movie. But he stays somewhat aloof, allowing the elements to blend and conflict at their own volition, and forcing the viewer to think. If nothing else, that's a damn valuable thing these days. And as a white lower-middle-class American, this movie made me even angrier at white middle-class America. The Coen brothers with Clooney have crafted a script that doesn't pursue the directions it could have taken -- intensely subversive domestic horror, hilariously scathing satire of white hegemony -- but certainly suggests all of the above and more. I laughed out loud more than once, and covered my eyes at least twice. (Seriously, why the hell wasn't that fire truck sounding its siren?!)
It's not a great mystery. It's a mediocre thriller, and a not-very dramatic drama. But as a quirky sort of crime flick, it works really well. Its well-rounded cast (including Glenn Fleshler and a scene-stealing Oscar Isaac who will make you feel all sorts of spectacular things in his brief onscreen appearance) provide a fabulous hour-and-three-quarters of entertainment. Workable if uninspired vision from the usually exceptional cinematographer Robert Elswit and typically mesmerizing music from Alexandre Desplat provide enchanting visuals and aurals to soak in, even when the plot isn't as daring as we might want. And, if murder and sexism and money and racism and child endangerment and classism weren't enough, there's always a crazy Julianne Moore, a sweet and terrifying Matt Damon, and a sexy and suave Oscar Isaac to soothe your soul.
Check into Suburbicon. You won't be sorry.
IMDb: Suburbicon
No comments:
Post a Comment