Paramount Pictures presents Suburbicon.
Premise:
Suburbicon is a peaceful, idyllic suburban community with affordable homes and manicured lawns… the perfect place to raise a family, and in the summer of 1959, the Lodge family is doing just that. But the tranquil surface masks a disturbing reality, as husband and father Gardner Lodge (Matt Damon) must navigate the town’s dark underbelly of betrayal, deceit, and violence. This is a tale of very flawed people making very bad choices. This is Suburbicon.
The cast is:
Matt Damon as Gardner Lodge, Nicky’s Father
Julianne Moore as Rose/Margaret
Oscar Isaac as Bud Cooper
Noah Jupe as Nicky Lodge, Gardner’s son
Glenn Fleshler as Ira Sloan, a hitman
Megan Ferguson as June
Jack Conley as Hightower
Gary Basaraba as Uncle Mitch
Michael D. Cohen as Stretch
George Clooney is back at it again with another Directing attempt, this time with a movie written by the Coen brothers. Going into this screening I was skeptical with the quality of the film since George Clooney has a track record of being hit or miss with his Directing efforts. Nonetheless after seeing the trailer I was excited to see this movie, I was expecting a dark comedic drama, like previous Coen brothers’ movies, but after seeing the movie, the story was a complete misfire.
The first half of the movie was good but the second half lost me and the story became confusing. The movie had two different stories taking place, set in the late 1950s, one story was about mobsters and collecting their debt from Matt Damon’s character, while the other story was about a black family moving into an all white neighborhood and how upset everyone became leading to the family dealing with racism.
As the story began to unfold I soon realized there were no likeable characters in this movie, everyone was shady, no one to cheer for, except for Nicky, played by Noah Jupe, who was the son of Matt Damon’s character.
We don’t know anything about the black family, we don’t learn who they are, why they moved into the neighborhood, etc. No idea why this story is even being told. I’m stlll confuse on why even introduce this subplot with no explanation.
After the events during the beginning of the movie, a mystery begins to open up but in the end even that was very predictable, including all the twists and turns along the way.
Despite an all-star cast, the substance of the plot was bad therefore no one’s performance could have saved this movie. I wish this movie had more of the dark comedy. I was bummed Oscar Isaac was hardly in the movie, but the scenes he was in were great. The kid, Noah Jupe, was the real highlight of this movie.
This movie had potential to be an interesting take on life in a suburban neighborhood in the late 1950s but the tone was off between these two different stories. I was hoping for some major political and social messages by the end of the movie, but instead no major pay off.
I would rate the film: 5/10
Go see Suburbicon when the movie hits theaters on Friday, October 27th.
Watch the trailer below.
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