‘Suburbicon’ doesn’t hit home as ’50s dark comedy
Mystery, racism battle for edge, and no one wins
In the grand scheme of Coen brothers’ scripts with nimwits making hugely bad decisions, Fargo exists on one brilliant end while Suburbicon lands with a hearty thud somewhere on the other side.
Longtime Coens favorite George Clooney steps behind the camera to direct the siblings’ latest, a disappointing black comedy ( eeEE out of four; rated R; in theaters Friday) that tries to do way, way too much. It dips into the timely satire of mid-20th century suburbia, with racism and white privilege hiding in plain sight next to picket fences and well-trimmed lawns, but rather than embracing it wholeheartedly, the narrative defaults to a lackluster murder mystery and a violent example of men and woman behaving badly.
Anywhere USA circa 1959 comes alive in the all-too-sedate Suburbicon, a housing community that espouses being “the melting pot of diversity” — which means white folks from New York, Ohio and Mississippi. When a black family moves in, the mailman assumes the wife is a maid and is left speechless when she isn’t. Residents peek around corners with scornful looks and organize a “Suburban Betterment Committee” to yell at no one in particular about their new neighbors.
While tumult roils literally in their back yard, the Lodge family is happy just sending little Nicky (Noah Jupe) over to play baseball with the next-door African-American boy (Tony Espinosa) as their racial outreach. Man of the house Gardner Lodge (Matt Damon) is a buttoned-up financial guy with a dark streak, Rose (Julianne Moore) is his resentful, wheelchair-bound wife and her twin, Margaret (also Moore), is happy to be helping out around the house.
One fateful night, their home is invaded by a pair of nasty burglars (Glenn Fleshler and Alex Hassell) who tie up the Lodges and kill Rose, leaving Nicky without a mom — though Margaret wastes no time in stepping into that role. Gardner finds out he’s not done with the antagonists either, and more trouble finds them in the guise of Bud Cooper (a terrific Oscar Isaac), an insurance claims investigator who finds all sorts of “red flags” for the events surrounding Rose’s death.
Even though the ambitious screenplay fizzles and the tone fails to lock in for any length of time, Clooney excellently puts on screen the retro look and staid feel of the ’50s while contrasting that faux wholesome view with the hate and malevolence that bubbles underneath artificial niceties. At the same time the Lodges’ lives spiral out of control and their fatal flaws are made very clear, the white residents of Suburbicon gather and hound the black family, horrifically draping their corner of the American dream with fire and Confederate flags.
The biggest defect of Suburbicon is not making that story the focal point of the movie. Instead we get Damon riding a too-small bicycle and taking a golf club to some poor schmuck’s head — a TV dinner when compared with the satisfying meal that could have been.