Suburbicon Movie Review

Suburbicon (2017)

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Written by: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen and George Clooney & Grant Heslov (written by)
Directed by: George Clooney
Starring: Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Oscar Isaac, Noah Jupe
Rated: R
Watch the trailer

Plot
The American Dream is manifest in 1957 Suburbicon, but beyond the manicured lawns, trouble is brewing. When a young mom dies in a home invasion her household unravels, but the community is far more concerned about the arrival of a black family.

Verdict
The description presents two separate ideas and the movie never manages to reconcile them. There is no overlap. While it may be a look at how terrible the town is as a whole and one of it's horrible residents that hide in this utopian facade, that's not really a movie. While this wants to point out that looks are deceiving, it doesn't get to the what next. We get a premise and no payoff. The only thing this does well is make me hate Damon's character. There's a Coen twist to the end, but I wouldn't advise sitting through ninety minutes to see it.
Skip it.

Review
This is part social satire that begins when a black family movies into the utopia that is white housing development Suburbicon. There is no subtlety to that. This city was created to escape dense urban areas, but if other people wanted the same life it would just recreate the same thing. It could be that Suburbicon is a result of white flight and gentrification, but if so, the movie never touches it.

This is trying to be satirical talking about the diversity of Suburbicon which is only geographical. Sure that worked in the '50s, but it's glaring what this movie is attempting. While that may be the point, it's far from a novel idea. I think the movie wants to contrast the perfect facade of these new homes and perfect lawns with what's actually happening. There's definitely some of this false facade and racism happening today. I'm not sure the people that need to see this movie ever will, and it's even more of a stretch when the movie itself just doesn't work.

We get two stories, the black family that movies in and is harassed and Matt Damon's character, Gardner Lodge, hatching a devious plan. These elements never come together. They live in the same suburb but never interact. George Clooney took a Coen brothers script and built on it, adding the aspect of the new family. You can tell what is the Coens' and what's not. There is a neat twist towards the end that is definitely the Coens.

Matt Damon as Gardner Lodge.

While Lodge's family is robbed and left with a devastating loss, the community is preoccupied. It's a good visual, but this is as far as it gets. Quite a few clues are dropped during the robbery that there is more to this crime. The robbers are very deliberate in what they do, and I was soon sure that it was more than a robbery.
As a character Lodge is terrible. There's no way to like him and I was left wondering how a father can feel that way about his son. I wanted the movie to provide some kind of reason, but it doesn't. It could be just as easy as him admitting he never wanted to be a father. There's the stereotype that women in the '50s did the child rearing and the father was the gruff disciplinarian, but Lodge doesn't even like his kid.

I just don't know what this movie is trying to do with the two separate stories. We see a lot of horrible people, but we're blatantly told what's going on, and there isn't much Coen humor. If the movie is trying to link the individual Lodge, to the whole of the community, it doesn't do a good job. This perfect neighborhood is anything but, just as Lodge's family turns out to be a false front. Both are exposed when their true intentions are put to the test. That's great but not much of a movie. Even if the point is that the community should be harassing Lodge who is the real bad guy, the movie needs to make the point and then do something with it. Lodge's plot to defraud the insurance company has a neat twist. I wonder if this was the half way point of the Coen's script and they never finished it.

The movie does a great job of making me hate Gardner Lodge and wishing there was more to this. Too many of the plot points are predictable, even the conclusion. While I like the last scene, it like the rest of the movie feels hollow.