Suburbicon 2017

     This film is based on true events that occurred in the community of

Levittown.  News interviews in the film are the actual interviews with the real citizens.  The setting of this film is the summer of 1959.  Suburbicon is a family centered, all white subdivision with manicured lawns and local people.  It’s hot this summer and tension begins to rise when the first African-American family moves into one of the homes.  Soon afterwards,two men break into the Lodge family home.  They use chloroform to drug Gardner, Rose, Margaret and Nicky at the dining table.  They intentionally give Rose an overdose and she dies.  Nicky is very upset because Rose was his mother.  Margaret and Rose were identical twins and Rose was married to Gardner.   The police are on the lookout for the robbers/killers.  Mass protests begin at the home of the new family the Mayers.  Nicky doesn’t understand what’s going on because he likes them and he plays with the son Andy Mayers.

     I didn’t know anything about this film before viewing.  I can say right away that I didn’t like this film and I was surprised it was based on true events?  It seems like none of the incidents would really happen??  I thought it was an invented story by the Coen brothers?  It’s evident right away why this movie had a loss of $14.8 million!!   I liked the Mayers family and I didn’t like what the neighbors were doing.  I definitely didn’t like Gardner or Margaret, I thought Rose was okay.  

      

105 min, Crime directed by George Clooney with Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Oscar Isaac, Landon Gordon, Karimah Westbrook, Noah Jupe, Glenn Fleshler, Megan Ferguson, Jack Conley, Gary Basaraba, Michael D. Cohen.  1* (I hated this movie)

Note:  Imdb 5.6 out of 10, 29% critic 25% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 1 ½*, Amazon 2.5* out of 5* with 243 reviews, Metacritic 42 out of 100 with 49 critics 4.2 out of 10 with 85 reviews.

Special Note:  Filmed in Fullerton, Carson, Burbank, Los Angeles, Encino, Van Nuys, Santa Claria, Canyon Country, Mystery Mesa, San Fernando, California.  Josh Brolin was filmed in the role of a baseball coach but his scenes were cut.  This film had the lowest opening weekend gross of any Paramount film released in over 2000 theaters.  This is the first time Clooney has directed a Coen Brothers script and he doesn’t have a role.  Rich Bokides was fired after 2 weeks because he clashed with Clooney.  The budget was $25 million and the worldwide gross was $10.2 million.