Suburbicon
Matt Damon ’s new movieSuburbiconhits dramatic art this weekend , and while it may have seemed like a surefire cinematic rest home run on composition , the largely negatively charged reviews it ’s received show that the final product is anything but . Currently sitting at a paltry 29 % over on Rotten Tomatoes ( based on 106 reviews ) , a look at the gift involve behind the yield may exit you scratching your head wondering where it all run wrong . Damon ’s as strong a extend man as there is , and Hollywood A - lister turn music director George Clooney has a pretty unanimous cartroad track record . The supporting dramatis personae boasts some magnanimous names as well , including Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac . And when you realize thatSuburbiconwas write by the Cohen brothers ( Clooney and his frequent quisling Grant Heslov also lent a hand there ) , you ca n’t assist but experience that this cinema should have beenmuchbetter than it is .
Actually , it ’s that last bite that may have sunk any chanceSuburbiconhad at greatness . The Cohen brother actually start compose the moving picture back back in the ' 80s and sky it to Clooney a few years by and by . The project was then mothball for years before Clooney and Heslov decided to combine it with a screenplay they were working on about a substantial - life black family that was the first to buy a family in an all - white biotic community in fifties Levittown , Pennsylvania . While we ’re sure the projects were spliced together with the best of intentions , the move resulted in one of the most disjointed and frustrating films of the twelvemonth .
And that’saboutthe decent thing the negative review have had to say about this misfire .
As the film unfolds , thing more and more become further and further unbelievable , and take to second of would - be horror that alternatively made me laugh out aloud , thanks to the incredulity of the place at hand . –Chicago Sun - Times
A garish and overblown crime melodrama that combine awkward noir with lame jabbing at 1950s suburban conformity and racial discrimination , two subjects whose satirical sell - by date are now decades past . –The Wrap
Watching this movie is an experience in irritation , as if the audience were a computed tomography and the filmmakers kept pet it in the wrong direction . –Boston world
Suburbicon is not only unfunny , a bad sign for a dim drollery , but deep - dyed dislikable . It ’s the calamitous effect of exhume an old unproduced Coen buddy script about execution and perverseness , then combining the flick noir material with a facile denunciation of white racialism in fifties suburbia . These two patch element have no organic connection with one another , though they do apportion a feel that make do to be at the same time lurid , ego - congratulatory , loftily scornful and perfectly lifeless . –Wall Street Journal
Clooney ’s film telegraphs everything with a lighthouse , eschews basic logic and did n’t elicit a single smile , let alone laugh . The best that can be said about " Suburbicon " is that it sports some cool vintage wallpaper . –Reeling Reviews
This startling dud is a tonal disaster from jump to finish … Suburbicon is shockingly unfunny , mostly due to the leaden , shapeless direction of it all but also performances from Damon and Moore that never seem to root on a feel or character . They ’re exanimate . Maybe purposefully ? As a commentary on wearisome lily-white middle America ? That ’s possible , but not harbor in any way . –RogerEbert.com
It ’s strikingly bad , too somber to be a clowning and too dizzy to work as dramatic event … The film is a collision of tones that would put a demolition derby to disgrace … Both sides of the film lift up a rock to expose the wormy things crawling beneath , neither in a room that ’s dramatically effective . –Minneapolis Star Tribune
Suburbiconmight be the big embarrassment to pious Hollywood liberalism sinceCrashwon best film in 2006 . –NPR
… as dreadfully miscalculated a studio apartment picture as I ’ve seen all year , Suburbicon is a calamity … Clooney ’s directorial career has been a bizarre 15 year reverse spiral during which he ’s somehow managed to unlearn nearly everything about how to make a movie . –The ARTery
It do a run at cleverness , trying to be a dark-skinned crackpot commentary on America ’s race trouble . But instead it ’s just a spectacular flop … Suburbicon wants to be a fable and a comedy , a screed and an entertaining indictment . Instead , it ’s a baffling bummer , a dud of epic proportions . –Vox
To be middling , critics have consistently pointed out Oscar Isaac and vernal Noah Jupe as standouts . And pass on that nearly a third of the movie ’s reviews are at least fairly positive , Suburbiconisn’t closely the gross railroad train shipwreck that recent release likeGeostormorBoo 2 ! A Madea Halloweenare . But still , as tonic tragedy are concerned , it look likeSuburbiconwill go down with the bad of the defective .
