Skip to main content

BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE Featurette

Movie Review: Suburbicon

Reject false Coens, even if Clooney-shaped.

Review by Brandon Wolfe

Ever since O Brother, Where Art Thou?, George Clooney has been a staple of some of the Coen Brothers’ sillier offerings in the 21st Century. Clooney has also appeared in their iffy Intolerable Cruelty as well as in the much stronger Burn After Reading. He has fashioned such a close working relationship with the Coens that he has now been entrusted with directing a script they’ve written. But just because you’ve worked with the Coens don’t make you the Coens.

The Coens wrote the script for Suburbicon in 1986, shortly after completing Blood Simple, yet never produced it, for whatever reason. But, upon seeing the finished product, it’s clearly of a piece with their oeuvre. The acidic black comedy, the comically boneheaded characters, the caper gone awry, the creatively gruesome deaths are all very familiar. Suburbicon, however, never gels the way that even the lesser Coen efforts do. Some key ingredient didn’t find its way into the crockpot. Actually, make that two key ingredients.


It’s the 1950s and we’re introduced to the spanking new community of Suburbicon, an idyllic little hamlet straight off of Norman Rockwell’s paintbrush. Immediately after being introduced to the place, by way of a cheeky-chipper commercial, we meet the Lodge family. The brood consists of square-as-a-peg patriarch Gardner (Matt Damon, inhabiting his old The Informant! dad-bod), his wheelchair-bound wife Rose (Julianne Moore), Rose’s identical-twin sister Margaret (also Moore) and their only son Nicky (Noah Jupe). We’ve barely gotten the introductions out of the way before we find the Lodges swept up in a home invasion by a couple of toughs angling for cash before knocking everyone unconscious with chloroform. Rose never wakes up.

In the aftermath, Margaret moves in to act as Rose’s surrogate, quickly and queasily cozying up to the nebbishy Gardner. When the two criminals show up in a police lineup, Nicky is stunned to find that his father and aunt proclaim not to recognize them, letting them slip back into the wind. We soon find out that an elaborate scheme has been hatched, and just as quickly begins to unravel, messily.

Clooney knows he’s making a Coen Brothers film, but he never seem to figure out which kind of Coen film he’s making. Is he making a zany farce like O Brother? A seriocomic crime meditation like Fargo? A plunge into soul-eroded darkness like No Country for Old Men? The answer is all of the above. Suburbicon has major tonal problems. It’s an impossible film to take the temperature of because it doesn’t know what it’s trying to achieve from scene to scene.


Another problem is that Clooney has tacked on a major subplot in the form of a black family living in the community enduring constant harassment from the wholly white, entirely unwelcoming residents of Suburbicon. While it’s possible that the Coens included this aspect of the film in their original script, it’s the one piece that doesn’t feel a bit like them, yet feels a lot like the admirably socially conscious Clooney. There is positively zero overlap between this subplot and the heinous hijinks of the Lodge family, neither narratively nor thematically. It’s as if an entirely separate film has forcibly intruded into this one like thieves in the night. It’s honestly bizarre that this madcap crime yarn keeps pausing from its loopy carnage to remind us that racism exists. Nothing wrong with the message, of course, but context is key.

Perhaps there’s a reason the Coens never made Suburbicon happen, despite have the clout at several points in their careers to do so. The film feels underrealized, even when it does pick up some much-needed steam in its second half. Damon and Moore don’t make the impression one would expect them to, either, though Oscar Isaac pops up late in the game as a weaselly insurance investigator and walks off with the movie. And the Coens, in the intervening years, have scratched a lot of the same itches seen here in far superior ways. The mechanics of plot are very similar to those of the vastly greater Fargo and there are many moving parts that the brothers seems to have harvested from this script for Burn After Reading. But mostly, the problem is that making a Coen Brothers movie cannot fall to anyone outside of the family. If anyone could make Coen Brothers movies, their films wouldn’t be as unique as they are. Put it this way: Clooney is trying to sell Fop to a bunch of Dapper Dan men. We will accept no substitutes.

Discuss this review with fellow SJF fans on Facebook. On Twitter, follow us at @SandwichJohnFilms, and follow author Brandon Wolfe at @BrandonTheWolfe.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Sex Tape Review: Overly Sexual, Rude, Vulgar, and Absolutely Hilarious

The raunchy Sex Tape will divide audiences and critics, but who cares? Sex Tape suggests a growing practice among loving partners: that of making a raunchy testament of their escapades for posterity. But what happens when that evidence gets seen by friends, neighbors, and even the mailman? This is the plot that pits Jay (Jason Segel) and Annie (Cameron Diaz) in an effort to secure every iPad gift Jay has given, his record company playlists being the envy of the recipients, but which has also inadvertently spread the video to every device. The reason for the act - termed in the movie as pulling "the full Lincoln " for its three-hour length - stems from the couple's non-existent social life, brought on by the constant demands of their children. The couple has a lot to lose: a burgeoning business relationship between Annie and Hank (Rob Lowe) could end if the iPad she's given to Hank exposes the video, and so the couple sets out to reclaim and wipe the incrim

New Clip & Release Date For Chaos Walking Starring Tom Holland & Daisy Ridley

In the not too distant future, Todd Hewitt ( Tom Holland ) discovers Viola ( Daisy Ridley ), a mysterious girl who crash lands on his planet, where all the women have disappeared and the men are afflicted by “the Noise” – a force that puts all their thoughts on display. In this dangerous landscape, Viola’s life is threatened – and as Todd vows to protect her, he will have to discover his own inner power and unlock the planet’s dark secrets. .   In theater & IMAX March 5th.   Discuss this with fellow SJF fans on Facebook . On Twitter, follow us at @SandwichJohnFilms Please Leave A Comment-

Half Nude Images From MAGIC MIKE. Your Welcome Ladies

Ladies here you go. Plenty of sexy photos of the cast from MAGIC MIKE . Make sure to check back, we will be hosting the advance screening in Sacramento. Mike ( Tatum ) is an entrepreneur. A man of many talents and loads of charm, he spends his days pursuing the American Dream from as many angles as he can handle: from roofing houses and detailing cars to designing furniture from his Tampa beach condo. But at night… he’s just magic. The hot headliner in an all-male revue, Magic Mike has been rocking the stage at Club Xquisite for years with his original style and over-the-top dance moves. The more the ladies love him, the more they spend, and the happier that makes club owner Dallas ( McConaughey ). "It's Raining Men" In This Magic Mike Clip-Your Welcome- See all the images after the Jump... Mike (Tatum) is an entrepreneur. A man of many talents and loads of charm, he spends his days pursuing the American Dream from as many angles as he ca