MICHAEL CLAYTON 2007
George Clooney’s legal fixer is still a hero for our times
BREAKING MICHAEL CLAYTON down to brass tacks, it goes a little like this: a hotshot lawyer, who has lost his way, finds himself. Ugh. No thank you. We’ve had quite enough of those, and besides, what could possibly top, say, The Verdict? Well, thankfully, writer-director Tony Gilroy and star George Clooney — the men responsible for breaking Michael Clayton down to brass tacks — clearly agree, and as a result, Michael Clayton is much more than that. It’s not a legal thriller in the true sense of the term — there isn’t a courtroom in sight — but rather a character study of the eponymous Clayton, a fixer at a high-powered law firm who’s reached a crossroads in his life. Not because of a great ethical conflict, or a sudden epiphany about the worth of what he does — those both come later — but because he’s massively in debt, and suddenly concerned about his job security. Upon this Gilroy skilfully peels back Clayton’s armour, pricking his conscience via his exposure to Tom Wilkinson’s Arthur, a lawyer who has experienced an epiphany and become a crusader; and his discovery that his firm is implicated in a huge cover-up.
But this is still not the movie you might expect. The final showdown between Clayton and Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), the jittery general counsel whose attempts to cover up her company’s indiscretions have led to a bungled attempt on Clayton’s life, is beautifully written and performed (Swinton won an Oscar; and perhaps the only thing standing between Clooney and a second little gold guy was the unscalable peak of Daniel Day-lewis in There Will Be Blood), and ends with Clayton quote-unquote winning the day. But there is no triumph here. No punch-the-air moment. He even lays it out for her, and for us. “I am not the guy that you kill, I am the guy that you buy.”
The movie — as sharp and and pointed as any film this century about the decline of America, industrial-scale corruption, and how that trickles down to individuals who get through the day by telling themselves a thousand little white lies so they can live with the great big whopper — ends with the camera fixed on Clayton’s face as he gets into a taxi and drives through New York, wrestling with the most pyrrhic of victories; the unhappiest of happy endings. It is a modern classic.