WRITTEN BY STEPHEN TRONICEK At the center of George Clooney’s inflammatory, yet vapid Suburbicon is a character. His name is Gardner Lodge (Matt Damon). He lives in the titular suburb and he is in love with his wife’s twin sister. He has the mob perform a job that gets his wife killed and in doing so brings all of it down on top of him...so why does Suburbicon focus on his kid? Suburbicon shifts the focus off of the character that drives the story and onto his child watching it all happen. For the record, that’s not a bad idea. Showing the story of this incredibly nihilistic, violent ordeal through the eyes of a child, can be easily juxtaposed against the way that the suburban life represented here was presented versus what it actually was. There’s a sly commentary to filtering the events of the story through the eyes of the only character that is able to believe in the safety and innocence of the suburbs, as to represent the way that society has swept the history of such communities under the rug. The movie climaxes with a race riot started simply because at the start of the movie an African American family moved in. This story, really only serves to be representative of the unrest and wrongheaded thinking of the suburban community, and serves a greater symbolic point, posing the question: Why wouldn’t all this happen with these people being truly just despicable and violent in the first place? but again, it doesn’t actually have much to do with the main story or just isn’t blended in well. Suburbicon, with as much going on as there is, does manage to juggle all of its stories by keeping this slightly detached look at everything. After all, if we’re just watching through the eyes of an observer we don’t necessarily need to connect all of the events that are going on. We just need to voyeuristically watch what’s happening and that’s honestly all fine, but it does make one think about the film that could have been if the focus had been kept on Lodge, a shift that would have allowed for a deeper character study, rather than the empty, though not expressly terrible shell that the movie is now. It would allow for the exploration of character, rather than just the presentation of character, something that Suburbicon does too often, again mainly to the fault of its focus. Multiple times throughout the film I was left thinking, “This moment would play better if it were just part of the exploration of Lodge’s character, and while it is entertaining, there’s no richness, just a bland aftertaste.” The best way to describe Suburbicon could be, a dime store apple pie. Sure it’s sweet, all American themed and has its moments of enjoyment, but it just isn’t what it could be. That’s often how some other creative decisions in the film feel. The score by Alexandre Desplat is fine at face value, but it sets too brisk of a pace to the film and imbues it with more of an insincere layer of emotionality. There are almost too many scenes where absolute silence as far as the musical score would suit the film better and allow the audience to actually figure out what’s going on in the characters heads. The cinematography by Robert Elswit is excellent, but it also seems a bit saccharine, even for a candy-colored suburb. There is so much of a problem with the framing that the whole film seems to be brought down by it. All of the component parts are good: Damon, Julianne Moore is incredible, Oscar Isaac is better in this then he is in Star Wars and yet it still fails and that’s the defining aspect of Suburbicon. The fact that even with all the right ingredients, it is simply an empty piece of violence. And it should have been more. It should have been much, much, more. Suburbicon gets a 5 out of 10
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |