Clooney's 'Suburbicon' disappoints as wannabe hilarious dark comedy
<h3 class="briefHead">"Suburbicon" - ★ ★ </h3>
It takes a while before the familiar ingredients of a Coen brothers testy black comedy percolate in George Clooney's disappointingly tepid "Suburbicon," a wannabe hilarious satire against corrupt and/or racist suburban whites spiked with generous doses of "Double Indemnity" and "Selma."
"Suburbicon," written by Joel and Ethan Coen, along with director Clooney and producer Grant Heslov, lacks the wicked bite and cerebral, caustic humor of Coens-helmed productions such as "Fargo" and "Blood Simple."
Clooney takes on the bold challenge of blending two seemingly incongruent genres - classic film noir and hard-hitting civil rights drama - with wavering results.
It doesn't help that the first part of "Suburbicon" seems more interested in fabulous recreations of 1950s Americana with meticulously detailed period props, costumes, hairstyles, TV shows and vintage automobiles (none of which brandishes scrapes, rust, dings or faded paint) than in the characters and their highly peculiar circumstances.
In an early cheesy video brochure, we learn that 1959 Suburbicon is an ideal American city teeming with diversity and acceptance, even though the illustrations feature only happy white people.
Two of them, Gardner and Rose Lodge, are 1950s archetypes played by Matt Damon and Julianne Moore. They're not so happy.
Damon's Lodge works as a conformist office breadwinner, supporting Rose, Moore's blonde '50s housewife (referencing her characters from "Far From Heaven" and "Kingsman: the Golden Circle"), now in a wheelchair after a terrible car crash.
Two sadistic heavies (Glenn Fleshler and Alex Hassell) invade the Lodge home. They chloroform Lodge, Rose, their young son Nicky (Noah Jupe) and Rose's twin brunette sister Margaret (more Moore). Rose doesn't survive.
Meanwhile, the Mayers, a black family of three led by Mrs. Mayers (Karimah Westbrook), move into the neighborhood, sparking outrage from the "diverse" community that subsequently launches a 24/7, hate-fuelled campaign to drive the unwanted residents out.
These parallel storylines never satisfactorily mesh, either in tone or substance, except for an artificially hope-injected finale.
"Suburbicon" offers a few memorable scenes, one that uses Nicky's point-of-view as he fights off a killer trying to pull him from under his bed.
Jupe possesses a perfectly readable face, especially in a dark, harrowing kitchen scene where he registers growing awareness of the corrupt, dark soul in someone he has trusted all of his short life.
Oscar Isaac's gleefully corrupt insurance adjuster (a nod to Fred MacMurray from "Double Indemnity") gives a welcome bounce to the movie, accompanied by Alexandre Desplat's florid score channeling vintage 1950s Bernard Herrmann music.
Starring: Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Noah Jupe, Oscar Isaac
Directed by: George Clooney
Other: A Paramount Pictures release. Rated R for language, sexual situations, violence. 105 minutes