Suburbicon ** (2017, Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Oscar Isaac, Noah Jupe) – Movie Review

This disappointing, misjudged, awkwardly plotted Coen Brothers-style dark comedy crime thriller just doesn’t catch fire despite the frenzied efforts of the talented cast and director.

I say Coen Brothers-style film, and they originally wrote the script back in 1986. But now they are credited as co-writers of it with George Clooney (who picked it up in 2005 to direct and star in it) and Grant Heslov, and it is Clooney who directs it. Might it have worked better if the Coen Brothers had directed too? Maybe not, they have had their failures too, though not many.

Unusually, Matt Damon doesn’t seem to have a firm handle on the central role as the patriarch Gardner Lodge, a mild-mannered father who faces his demons after his quaint, peaceful, all-white neighbourhood is shaken by the arrival of an African-American family and a home invasion in 1959.

Might it have worked better if Clooney had starred too? Maybe so, for the patriarch feels more like his kind of role. However, Julianne Moore is quite fun as twin sisters Rose and Margaret, and Oscar Isaac enjoys himself as the charismatic insurance agent Bud Cooper.

Anyway, the Lodge family home is broken into by two robbers, who tie up the family and kill the mother Rose with an overdose of chloroform. But her twin sister, Margaret, moves in to help take care of the son Nicky (Noah Jupe). Creepily, she begins to transform herself into Rose, dyeing her hair and having sex with Gardner. Plotwise, it is interesting stuff, isn’t it?

Obviously, mixing dark comedy, social satire, racial commentary, crime thriller and murder mystery is way ambitious, but was pretty much doomed from the start, and all these clever people can’t assemble it smartly. There is good material here, but it does not make a good film. What is smart, though, is the cinematography by Robert Elswit, the period production design by James D Bissell, the art direction by Christa Munro and the score by Alexandre Desplat, It is impeccably crafted, a credit to all the technicians involved.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review

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