Suburbicon

George Clooney’s best movie since The Ides of March, Suburbicon details the chaos that unfolds on a quiet residential street after a black family moves in – with the story quickly zeroing in on the violence that ensues within a seemingly normal household consisting of dad Gardner (Matt Damon), mom Rose (Julianne Moore), and son Nicky (Noah Jupe). It’s interesting to note that although it eventually does become quite an engrossing picture, Suburbicon suffers from an opening stretch that resembles a fairly run-of-the-mill and generic domestic drama – with the somewhat erratic atmosphere compounded by Clooney’s ongoing emphasis on the aforementioned racial tensions (ie there’s a palpable needlessness to many of these scenes and, worse, the entire subplot ultimately feels a little didactic). The movie improves substantially once it essentially transforms into a progressively engrossing thriller, as Clooney delivers a screw-tightening midsection that’s rife with standout, suspenseful sequences. (There is, for example, an entire bit involving Oscar Isaac’s insurance adjuster that’s nothing short of spellbinding.) And while the movie is continuously peppered with questionable elements (Alexandre Desplat’s quirky score remains a distraction from start to finish, for one thing), Suburbicon benefits greatly from Clooney’s solid direction and a raft of stellar performances – to the extent that the movie, in its final stretch, becomes far more gripping than one might’ve expected based on its so-so opening stretch. (The movie essentially justifies its very existence with a late-in-the-game scene involving a loaded conversation between Gardner and his terrified son.) The end result is a decidedly uneven effort that nevertheless boasts more positive elements than negative, and one can only hope that Clooney is, in light of a thoroughly up-and-down filmography, finally coming into his own as a director.

***1/2 out of ****