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Suburbicon

Suburbicon

USA 2017 - with Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Oscar Isaac, Noah Jupe ...

The Frankfurt-Tipp rating:

Movie info

Original title:Suburbicon
Genre:Drama, Comedy
Direction:George Clooney
Cinema release:09.11.2017
Production country:USA 2017
Running time:Approx. 105 min
Rated:Age 16+
Web page:www.suburbicon-film.de

The Suburbicon estate is the quintessential example of 1950s suburban idyll in the US. Here, there seems to be everlasting happiness and perpetual harmony. This changes abruptly when the Meyers, the first colored family, moves into the community. Suddenly, terrible hostilities and open racism cloud the postcard idyll. In the heated situation, the lives of the Lodge family also come apart at the seams. After a robbery in their home, mother Rose (Julianne Moore) dies, leaving her husband Gardner (Matt Damon), their son Nicky (Noah Jupe) and aunt Margaret (also Julianne Moore), Rose's twin sister, grieving and traumatized. But more and more, the adults become entangled in a web of lies and intrigue. As Nicky begins to understand this, the fragile house of cards of the former family happiness threatens to finally collapse - and suddenly Nicky's life, still so young, is at stake.

With Suburbicon, George Clooney has adapted a previously unfilmed screenplay by the Coen brothers. However, he didn't simply adapt the existing script, but added to it a storyline written by him and his co-writer Grant Heslov. This was inspired by the true events surrounding the Meyer family, who were the first African-American couple to settle in a suburban Pennsylvania settlement called Levitton in the 1950s. There, they faced an incredible wave of hatred and racism. For Clooney, these harrowing events were the ideal setting for the Coens' story, which, in its own special way, demystified the postcard American idyll of the 1950s.

Unfortunately, the two parts just don't want to fit together. The plot line that Joel and Ethan Coen came up with is also full of dark moments, but it's also just infused with a bitterly satirical tone that culminates in some very bizarre moments here and there. Scenes like the mugging of the family are also depressing, but nowhere near as much as those showing what the Meyers have to endure in their new neighborhood.

Clooney is a good director, but here his staging somehow seems very indecisive and too strained to tie together two stories that fit together in their message but not in their tone. Neither the good actors nor the coherent 50s feeling established here help to iron this out somehow. Suburbicon shows that well-intentioned doesn't necessarily lead to well-made. But since there are at least some really good moments and especially Julianne Moore plays excellently, the bottom line is still a hesitant, but still convinced: worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp

Media:

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Cinema trailer for the movie "Suburbicon (USA 2017)"
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