Suburbicon * * 1/2

I was reading that Suburbicon has been a box-office failure. There were only four people in the cinema when I went to see it, and that was on the weekend, so I guess that says something. Personally, I think the reason it’s a failure is because, well, it’s a crap film.

Things are going wrong in Suburbicon

        How can such an assembly of talent get it so wrong?

        It’s set in the idealistic suburbs of America in the 1950’s, where everything is clean and folks watch out for each other - but who knows what’s going on behind closed doors?  Matt Damon plays Gardner Lodge.  His wife is tragically murdered by bad men who break into his house. Then the plot twists begin.

       There are some well acted scenes but overall it’s a mess. Apparently the Coen brothers wrote the original screenplay, but George Clooney and his buddies have pulled it around, re-written, and script-doctored it to death, then put their names up as co-writers.  Then George directed it.  Just another deluded actor who’s got it figured: “I can act, therefore I can direct”.  Wrong!

       It certainly doesn’t help itself with the B story, a black family moving into this chronically white neighborhood,  I have no idea why it is there; especially when no resolution is given to that story and it has the most tenuous connection to the main story.

      Threads are picked up and let drop, people are introduced and then left undeveloped.  Ideas are brought in and left unexplored.  We are left in the dark with one one principal character and have no idea if he lived or died.

       It’s a freaking mess!  A jigsaw puzzle which suggests a pleasing picture, but there are pieces missing, left on the floor, or wrongly placed.

       Some good points: an interesting “homage” to film-noir. Murder scenes shown with in silhouette against the wall, like a macabre shadow puppet show. and dramatic music as per 1940’s; but the inconsistency of these ideas tend to emphasise how undisciplined the whole film is.