Suburbicon | Little White Lies

Sub­ur­bicon

22 Nov 2017 / Released: 24 Nov 2017

Words by Ed Gibbs

Directed by George Clooney

Starring Julianne Moore, Matt Damon, and Oscar Isaac

Man in a wheelchair next to vintage car in darkness
Man in a wheelchair next to vintage car in darkness
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Anticipation.

It’s been a while since Clooney the filmmaker struck gold.

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Enjoyment.

Dual narratives – where fact meets fiction in race-hate America – work a treat.

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In Retrospect.

A timely, relevant refresh on classic-era Coens.

George Clooney adds a dark direc­to­r­i­al flour­ish to the Coen broth­ers’ tale of mur­der and moral pan­ic in small­town USA.

Inspired by events in Levit­town, Penn­syl­va­nia in 1959 – when a well-to-do African-Amer­i­can fam­i­ly were vio­lent­ly harassed by white suprema­cists short­ly after mov­ing to the all-white sub­urb – George Clooney’s lat­est direc­to­r­i­al out­ing could hard­ly feel more pre­scient. Updat­ing a 1980s Coen broth­ers screen­play which crack­les with trade­mark tropes and flour­ish­es, Clooney revis­es the Blood Sim­ple-era mate­r­i­al with bite and siz­zle. Although shoot­ing wrapped a year ago, the lm chimes with America’s cur­rent POTUS – sanc­tioned race war. Clooney’s instinct for sto­ry­telling now means that Sub­ur­bicon take on a whole new lay­er of meaning.

Matt Damon and Julianne Moore are Gard­ner and Rose Lodge, an appar­ent­ly per­fect Amer­i­can cou­ple: him a suit-and-tie vice pres­i­dent at an ad agency, her a house­wife with an inquis­i­tive but iso­lat­ed young son to raise. When the fam­i­ly – aug­ment­ed by Rose’s iden­ti­cal sis­ter Mar­garet (also played by Moore) – falls vic­tim to a home inva­sion, the neigh­bours are quick to blame the black new­com­ers for an ensu­ing tragedy.

But Gard­ner, who seems strange­ly unflus­tered dur­ing this ordeal, has more than his share of secrets, which soon begin to spill out as the action turns more vio­lent, in a deranged and satir­i­cal way.

Damon and Moore are par­tic­u­lar­ly good here, with the for­mer releas­ing his pent-up rage like a man dis­pos­sessed, and clear­ly enjoy­ing play­ing against his good­ie-good­ie type. Oscar Isaac pro­vides sup­port as an oily insur­ance man who wants more than a cut of the action. It’s deli­cious­ly dark stuff, with bru­tal mob­sters con­trast­ed by laugh­ably stiff suits, nei­ther of whom have any clue what their every­man vic­tim is capa­ble of.

Two individuals, a woman in a peach-coloured blouse and a man in a white shirt and tie, stand in a room with shelves in the background.

The racial ele­ments, added by Clooney and co-writer Grant Heslov, flesh out what would oth­er­wise feel like famil­iar Coen ter­ri­to­ry. Indeed, as Clooney hap­pi­ly clar­i­fied dur­ing the press call at the 2017 Venice Film Fes­ti­val, the rea­son why the script had been gath­er­ing dust for so long was sim­ply because the Coens felt they had cov­ered this ter­ri­to­ry already. Giv­en this unusu­al sce­nario, it feels quite the treat to see a film­mak­er like Clooney pick up an unpub­lished Coen script and run hell for leather with it.

Behind the veil of respectable sub­ur­bia lies a well of sin just sim­mer­ing under the sur­face. The couple’s son Nicky (Noah Jupe) acci­den­tal­ly walks in on Gard­ner spank­ing Mar­garet with a ping pong bat (S&M 1950s-style), while it becomes evi­dent that the two adults have been plot­ting some saucy, sor­did busi­ness for quite some time. A run­ning gag about elop­ing to Aru­ba (a Dutch pro­tec­torate) works nice­ly as the ten­sion builds to a dev­il­ish­ly effec­tive climax.

Sub­ur­bicon, which is lensed by There Will be Blood’s Robert Elswit (and boasts a strong score from Alexan­dre Desplat), is Clooney’s most star­tling work behind the cam­era since Good Night, and Good Luck – and some­thing of a return to form after the best-for­got­ten romp that was The Mon­u­ments Men. With a clear sense of sto­ry and pur­pose, the film not only serves as a shot in the arm for inde­pen­dent nar­ra­tive cin­e­ma, but also as a ral­ly­ing cry for those deter­mined not to see the US go to the dogs. Clooney is unashamed­ly patri­ot­ic, and this often comes through in his work, no mat­ter how way­ward the char­ac­ters. Long may it continue.

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