Forgotten, The Coen Friends’ Comedy Can Be Recognized as Their Most Distinguished Effort
Written by Robert Scucci | Published
It’s never fun when genius filmmakers like the Coen brothers swing for the fences and miss. In the case of 2017 The Suburbiconthe fence is a variety of white pickets, and George Clooney handled the writing and directing duties. The result of this collaboration is two completely different films crammed into each other, making for an interesting experiment in social satire that never feels satisfying.
The Suburbicon it was originally written by the Coen brothers shortly thereafter Simple Blood made its rounds in 1985. The project was conceived as a murder mystery set in an exotic location, but it took a completely different tone when George Clooney got involved. Clooney’s contributions to the script include a story about a Black family who moves into a white neighborhood in the 1950s, and experiences the kind of racial upheaval you’d expect when their new neighbors don’t take too kindly to their presence.
While both of these stories are strong on their own and could be successful as separate films, The Suburbicon in the end they miss the mark because they are not fully integrated. The result feels like two separate films limping across the finish line instead of successfully scoring.
A Murder Mystery and a New Family on the Block
The first story in The Suburbicon focuses on the Lodge family. Gardner Lodge (Matt Damon) and his wife Rose (Julianne Moore) at first appear to be your average American family. They form a happy marriage, and their son Nicky (Noah Jupe) is a picture-perfect kid living in the suburbs. A constant presence at the Lodge is Rose’s identical twin, Margaret (Julianne Moore), who is romantically involved with Gardner.
One night, criminals Ira Sloan (Glenn Fleshler) and Louis (Alex Hassell) break into the Lodge residence, although their motive is still questionable at this point in the film. They rally the family to defeat it, but end up giving Rose, who is paralyzed, a fatal dose, leaving Nicky motherless. In the weeks and months that follow, Margaret begins to dress and act like Rose, gradually fitting into the Lodge family as if she were the matriarch she always was.
Over time, the family is brought to the police station to find the men who ruined their lives. Nicky is convinced that the men who killed his mother are on the list. Gardner flatly denies that they are the same man, and so does Margaret. The whole situation doesn’t sit well with Nicky, and it’s only a matter of time before the truth rears its ugly head.
Meanwhile, the Mayers family, who are Black, move into the area The Suburbicon subdivisions and met with immediate backlash. Nicky befriends Andy Mayers (Tony Espinosa), and the two get along just fine. Andy’s mother (Karimah Westbrook) and father (Leith Burke), however, face discrimination and cruelty from neighbors who want their community to remain white. Racial tensions eventually erupt into chaos fueled by long-standing family feuds, while the mystery of the murders at the Lodge compound continues to unfold with tragic consequences.
Two Different Movies Trying to Be One
Both stories in The Suburbicon they work well on their own, but things go awry when forced together. Every time I watched the movie, I kept waiting for both of these stories to cross in a meaningful way during the third act, and they do. However, that intersection feels forced through the film’s irony, resulting in a sloppy resolution. This is frustrating because the social commentary is all there, and the second and third acts could have been structured differently to tell a more cohesive story.
If only the Coen brothers and George Clooney wanted to commit themselves fully to the plot and the dream The Suburbicon in a senseless place, they could pull it off the same way they did O Brother, Where are you?
A white family suffers from a deadly home invasion at the same time a Black family moves into the neighborhood, even though we know the perpetrators of the attacks are clearly white. Society then relies on racism by establishing a correlation and allowing their thoughts to continue. We find traces of that idea The Suburbiconbut for it to sit well, the murder mystery will need to take a back seat.
In the same way, to fully explore the murder mystery, racial commentary will need to be minimized. The Suburbicon it suffers, and ultimately fails, because it doesn’t know which lane to stay on, and worse, it doesn’t know when or how those lanes should converge to create a sharp, effective satire that effectively explores both sides of the coin it’s tossing in the air.
The Suburbicon it boasts all the Coen brothers we’ve come to know and love over the decades, but it plays more like a proof of concept than a fully realized film. It doesn’t feel completely perfect. Instead, it appears as if their script was thrown into a blender with George Clooney’s, circulated on a bulletin board, and then rushed into production when Clooney said “action.”
As of this writing, The Suburbicon is streaming free on Pluto TV.
