Suburbicon: Bienvenidos al paraíso

I'm a huge fan of the Coen Brothers. To me, cinema doesn't get much better than No Country for Old Men or Burn After Reading or Raising Arizona...you get the idea. So when I heard that George Clooney was directing their next original script, naturally I couldn't wait to see it. Fast track a year and a half later and here we are. Clooney proved to me that it takes much more than a Coen Bros script to make it a Coen Bros film. Suburbicon is one of the few films that will come about where the talent attached to the project is so overwhelming and plentiful but the final product is so mediocre and bordering on bad that it leaves you scratching your head.

The film is very beautiful to start off. The cinematography is very crisp and extremely colorful which makes the setting of the 50s suburbs seemingly pop even more so. The production design and basically anything of a technical aspect is amazingly done here by traditional standards. So why is Suburbicon falling flat? Very simple: Clooney is woefully unqualified to direct a Coen Bros script as are most people. This feels like it was made by someone who watched Fargo and Burn After Reading a dozen times and decided to make this. It feels like it is an imitation and, by the end of the film, that is all it turns out to be. The cast is even really dull despite a fantastic performance from Julianne Moore. Damon can't decide whether to play it funny or serious and that really plays a big part in the violence of the film. It is comically set up but brutally executed. It doesn't feel right at all and it makes for a very tough watch.

Overall, Suburbicon is a film that will probably leave your mind as quickly as it came. It is a very forgettable film. It is a frustrating piece of cinema as well because we will always be left with the thoughts of what could have been. With the level of talent and star power, Suburbicon has no business being as dull and ragged as it is especially because in a technical sense, the film is great. But with Clooney's misguided direction and Matt Damon's very erratic performance, Suburbicon is a miss of the most disappointing fashion.

This will be the first time I have ever written a review for IMDb. After watching the movie the other night, I had to check the scores on the site as I usually do. When I saw the score of a measly 4.8 out of 10 something compelled me to write this review.

From start to finish it was gripping and interesting. It has been a long time ago I saw such an original piece of art. I'm not a cinegraphic expert by any means, but I recognize a gem when I see one.

Go see it !

Quite surprised by so many bad ratings, almost as though there was another agenda. I had not read these before watched the film and did not know it was co written by the coen brothers, but I found it better than I expected and only gave it 8 instead of 7 to up the overall rating. It moved along at a steady pace and was pretty lean. I would certainly recommend anyone to that I know well to watch if they get the opportunity.

I was postponing watching this film several times because of the low note here - currently at 5.5

However, I would give this film a rating 7 as I think it was interesting and entertaining from the beginning til the end. Beginning with two Juliennes was kinda funny. I think it was really clever to not know from the beginning what has happened at the dinner/night scene. I admit it got me curious and not many films make me think anything.

The whole black family thing ...well, I am from Europe, so we do not have those 'tensions' which also are showing in comments of people here - so I will not say anything particular about it - only that it did not serve a big purpose in the film in my opinion.

For me, the film is quite good.

1950s America is often mythologised as a period both boring and socially cohesive, before things became interesting and decisive in the following decade. And today, there seems to be a entire sub-genre of films interested less in telling the truth than in playing with the myth. 'Suburbicon' is one such movie, a satire of a view of the world that surely no-one takes at face value anymore. The script is by the Coen brothers, and as such, it's a typical black comedy, quite cleverly worked but without much of a heart. For example, racism is a theme, but the film doesn't really feel very angry about racism, more amused with the direct juxtaposition of the very real racism of the period with the idyllic fantasy of suburban life. There's nothing particularly wrong with George Clooney's direction; but no great sense that the film has anything in particular to say.