Review: "Suburbicon" is Messy and Mean-Spirited Satire With Fleeting Moments of Inspiration

Scene from Suburbicon

When one thinks of the 1950's American suburbs, there's a certain image that comes to mind. It's the land of TV shows like Leave It To Beaver, where conflicts are so pedestrian that one would be forgiven for thinking that baby boomers were wimps. It's an image that has been satirized both loving and mawkishly, and director George Clooney is the latest to throw his name into the ring with a film that not only subverts the suburban mentality, but attempts to explore it through a modern political prism. The film isn't as funny as its Joel and Ethan Coen script (also co-penned by Clooney and frequent partner Grant Heslov) would suggest, but it's one of the year's more interesting messes that attempts to take fake conservatism down a peg with a liberal agenda that is as obvious as it is prescient in 2017. The film is a mess, but at least Clooney keeps it interesting.

The satire begins in slight details represented in an upbeat ad for Suburbicon: a place where everything is pristine. With the upbeat narration, the film suggests that people from all corners of the United States travel there for happiness. The places listed are all on the eastern coast, which already reflects a flawed form of thinking that will carry throughout the rest of the film. As the film cuts to the actual story, there's an uncomfortable racial tension brewing in Suburbicon; a land where not even a blade of grass looks out of place. It's full of awkwardness as the film's two stories begin to stray from each other. One is about race while the other is about crime. By the end, they'll return to discuss what they learned. However, they should've met a few other times just to make the ending feel more poignant. There's nothing wrong with where these two stories travel from there, but it reflects just how uncertain the screenplay sometimes appears.

The film that Clooney clearly wanted to make was a dark comedy satire of Leave It To Beaver mentality. He wanted to make naive innocence of white utopia into something ugly and crusty. The images are so inherently false that one could poke holes quickly and find the pent up rage that lies underneath the surface. It isn't just in the racial conflict that has barely any significant story (that is, until the ending), but in the conflicts risen by the white middle class family that is lead by Matt Damon's Gardener Lodge. The horror starts early and features a juxtaposition so rough that the film's balance of 50's glamour is never able to resurface, instead finding joy in a cynical world view that includes murder, taboo sex, prescription drugs, financial corruption, and the loss of childhood innocence. As these ideas should suggest, it's all a bit unpleasant. When paired with the lesser story, it turns Suburbicon into a hellscape. The mileage out of the film's demented joy in deconstruction will differ. Still, it's a very nasty film succeeding more for shock than thought, though Clooney probably wanted the latter.

Clooney has always been more interesting as a filmmaker, obsessed with genre tropes and techniques to subvert the stories within them. In this case, he has fused a 50's melodrama setting with a traditional crime story in which everyone figuratively ends up with blood on their hands. With an all star cast, Clooney conveys a lot of the frustration through small outbursts that could be played for farce, but end up feeling mean spirited. It's in part an issue because everything that was lovable at the start of the movie develops a gross persona that conveys the ugliness of suburban life. It's supposed to be perfect, but everybody is compensating for that struggle. The issue is that Clooney is more into the crime movie than the melodrama, and the balance never quite establishes itself. It's disturbing and effective at points, but the film feels more like an endurance test for those who came to the film for shiny houses and gorgeous costume designs. It's a film about corruption, and its happy ending barely covers up how much time it revels in the negative and impersonal evils of its characters.

Suburbicon had plenty going for it, but it comes across as minor work for everyone involved. It doesn't quite reach the inspired heights of Clooney's other pitch black satires like Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Instead, it settles for a playful atmosphere with too many toys and a box not big enough to house them. Everyone gets a moment or two to shine, but the film tests the limits of decency with countless taboos that sometimes feel placed for visceral effect rather than narrative. It's a fun film for those who like a bit of sadism in their satire, but it's far from the greatest example of what that style of film making can achieve. It's far from the demented Leave It To Beaver subversion that the opening few minutes suggest, and that's probably the biggest disappointment of all.