SUBURBICON SPEC D: George Clooney. USA. 105 min. Sep 9, 6:30 pm, Princess of Wales Sep 10, noon, Roy Thomson Hall. Rating: NN
The prospect of George Clooney shooting an old screenplay by his pals Joel and Ethan Coen was a really interesting one, especially once I heard that said screenplay was written back around the time of Blood Simple and Raising Arizona.
There are distinct traces of that vintage Coen zing in Suburbicon, but only in flashes. As we saw in 2008’s Leatherheads, which also felt like an exercise in What Would Joel And Ethan Do?, Clooney knows the music, but the rhythm isn’t there.
Most of the film is just a flat imitation of Blood Simple, following along as a noose slowly tightens around the necks of the inept lovers-slash-murderers at its centre.
Suburbicon unfolds in a planned community in 1959 middle America, where the lily-white residents are whipping themselves into a frenzy over the arrival of a Black family, but that has so little to do with the principal storyline that I’d bet it was added in a later draft.
Everybody’s trying, and Matt Damon is especially strong as a genial family man trying to steer his son (Noah Jupe) through the aftermath of an awful home invasion. In just two scenes, Oscar Isaac puts everyone else to shame as a skeptical insurance investigator. He knows both the rhythm and the music, and it’s a shame he doesn’t get more to do.
