Here are a few things that I love: 1950s suburban nostalgia, scathingly dark social satire and murder mysteries. Here is something I don’t love: Suburbicon. It is a film that should have been a lot better, and considering the plethora of talent in front of and behind the camera. Suburbicon is a film that had so much potential, and while this kind of filmmaking would be considered understandable coming from less experienced creative minds, the fact that it turned out to be something akin to a dud is truly baffling, and honestly just inexcusable and bitterly disappointing. It is a film I was ready to adore, or at least be entertained by – yet every time Suburbicon attempts to take a leap, it fails miserably, becoming something that could have been great, but just turned out beyond mediocre for a variety of reasons.

Throughout this film, I felt that George Clooney was attempting to craft his own version of a Coen Brothers film, just to much less effectiveness. You can imagine my surprise when the credits showed that the Coen Brothers themselves co-wrote the screenplay with Clooney and regular collaborator Grant Heslov, who attempted to create a similarly Coen-esque film to about equal success a few years ago with The Men Who Stare at Goats (and as flawed as that film was, it was remarkable in comparison to this) – and while I would not be surprised if this was purely a film crafted by Clooney, but something about seeing Joel and Ethan Coen being involved in this film is a little disheartening, considering their impressive output that exists even with less-admirable efforts such as The Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty (both far better satires than Suburbicon). I am not sure how much of this film’s flaws can be attributed to the fact that it is a screenplay from the early years of the Coen Brothers’ careers, or if Clooney just entirely misinterpreted the tone of a screenplay – but I can tell you, regardless of whether Clooney mangled the screenplay in an effort to bring Suburbicon into a contemporary cinematic landscape, or if it was just a weak screenplay to begin with, Suburbicon just simply did not work.

Suburbicon is set in 1957, in the idyllic suburb of…Suburbicon. Gardner Lodge (Matt Damon) is a typical working-class suburban man, providing for his wheelchair-bound wife Rose (Julianne Moore) and his son Nicky (Noah Jupe). However, a house invasion results in Rose’s death, and the assimilation of her twin sister Margaret (also Julianne Moore) into their family life – however, secrets start to be uncovered, and deception and dishonesty proves to complicate this story, as we see that there is far more behind Rose’s gory and avoidable death than simply a house invasion – and a conspiracy starts to reveal itself that may shatter the tranquil community of Suburbicon. There is also an overt sub-plot about a black family moving into the neighborhood, which results in the single-handedly most excruciating display of outrage I have ever seen reflected in a film.

The biggest problem with Suburbicon is that it is just so unoriginal. There are so many films and television shows that look at the 1950s suburban culture, and do so with so much more dignity and refinement, and actually have a solid approach to the story which allows it to actually have a coherent and logical story and sequence of events. Suburbicon is a film that attempts to be a satire on a period that has received substantial artistic representation, both realistically and through caricature. I actually hate to say this, because every film that is made serves its purpose, but if there was one word that I could use to describe Suburbicon, it would be this: unnecessary. There wasn’t any market for this film, nor was there any need for this film to be made considering the wealth of attention this era has received. There isn’t anything wrong with attempting something new, as long as it is something daring or unique in approach. Suburbicon feels less like a satire of 1950s suburban culture, and more an attempt to parody the far superior satires of 1950s suburban culture. In all simplicity, it really is just a matter of this film just not saying or doing anything that hasn’t been said many times before, and in ways that are far more entertaining and effective.

Something else I noticed about Suburbicon: nearly everyone involved has been far better in nearly everything I’ve seen them in prior to this. Matt Damon may not be the most alluring actor, but he is a comforting presence and has shown himself to be adept at a variety of genres, navigating between comedy and drama without much difficulty. Suburbicon is undeniably one of his weakest performances, mainly because he plays a character that was just dull, and it didn’t help that Damon seemed to refuse to do anything interesting with the character. Whether conveying the fake innocence of the character, or transitioning into the antagonist of the film, Damon just does not do anything even vaguely fascinating. Rather, his performance is flat and lifeless, and just void of any legitimate characterization. It is an absolute understatement to call his performance disappointing. I expected so much more from Damon. Moreover, Julianne Moore, who is usually wonderful in everything she touches, is just painfully underutilized here, playing the hopelessly under-developed dual roles of Rose and Margaret, and while her character calls for a lot more, Moore just isn’t given the space to develop the character beyond being a stereotypical 1950s housewife. Consider this is around the third time Moore has played a complex suburban housewife in 1950s America, so at this point, it is either a lazy casting decision or an attempt to satirize Moore’s previous roles. Neither is successful.

However, there is some positive aspects of this film – Noah Jupe is wonderful as Nicky, the young son of the main character through whom the audience sees the story. His performance is a lot more subtle and avoids the adorable child-actor syndrome many of these performances tend to fall into. I won’t call it a star-making turn, nor a breakout performance – but it does show that the child does have potential and clear talent, and with the right decisions, he could hopefully find himself in better films, using this co-leading role in Suburbicon as a launching pad for a potentially bright career. The other positive part of this film was Oscar Isaac, who arrives towards the end of the second act and breathes fresh air into an otherwise putridly mediocre film. His role as the sleazy but hyper-intelligent insurance investigator is a lot better than the film it appears within, and despite having only two scenes, Isaac single-handedly elevates the film, because he seems to be the only actor in the film that understands the absurdity of the film, and has a firm grasp on the darkly comic tone. His performance is tragically short, and I was hoping he’d be developed far more than he was. However, he still proved to be the best part of the entire film, but that was not a difficult feat to accomplish in comparison to the rest of this film.

The problem with Suburbicon is that it just does not know what it wants to say nor does it know how to say it. The audience is lead to believe that it is a satirical dark comedy about race relations, and in some regards some of the nuances pertaining to that storyline are quite profound and would have lead to some potentially great statements – yet Suburbicon simply does not go where it should have gone, and the race-relations aspect of this film was so poorly tacked-on, it felt completely out of place. While films such as Get Out and Detroit explored similar themes, they did so with nuance and subversive brilliance. Suburbicon throws its supposed profound brilliance at the audience, and does not allow us to reach any independent conclusions. Clooney seemed to be attempting to make a social satire – yet in order for something to be satirical, it needs to be able to make some sort of statement – and perhaps it was lost on me, but I saw absolutely nothing here worth noting. It is almost misguided in its attempt to comment on the hostility of the Civil Rights Era, and its notable lack of anything meaningful is far too overt to ignore. Its actually quite disheartening that someone who has been in the business as long as Clooney could make something with such poor representation, and rather chooses to approach the most interesting aspects of this film in a manner that is almost disrespectful and just plain underwhelming. Of all the mistakes this film made, the decision to pay more attention to a trite and overdone scenario while ignoring themes that could’ve made it far better than the slog we received.

In the end, Suburbicon is just a dull film. It may look the part, but that means nothing considering the endless amounts of films that take place in this period, which is almost an entire sub-genre on its own. Suburbicon commits the carnal sin of just being utterly boring and uninterested in anything other than its own arrogant approach to satire, which fails tremendously. The performances, with the exception of a great performance from Noah Jupe and a fun, scene-stealing turn from Oscar Isaac, are unremarkable and poorly-developed. It is a film that had so much potential, which is precisely why such a disappointing result actually is quite disheartening. In some ways, I’d expect Clooney to know better, but he is ultimately entirely unremarkable as a director, with the exception of one or two films that actually managed to be decent. However, considering the prestige of those involved in this film, one would expect something far better than this misguided, ill-fated and half-baked attempt at satire. It just does not work, and it is not nearly as smart, thrilling or funny as it thinks it is – and the worst part is, it seems to believe that it is far better than it actually is, which is a kind of cinematic arrogance that just drives me further away from such a film. It could’ve been a fun, entertaining and subversive dark comedy, but it rather chose to not care too much about characters and assume the audience cares about these people, when in actuality, an unlikable character is only endearing when they are well-developed. When they aren’t, it is just excruciating to watch, and the audience just becomes detached from the film.

Suburbicon is a film that squanders its great potential in the pursuit of something it knows it can never achieve – smart satire with fascinating characters. Why it seemed incapable of achieving this is beyond me, but I do know one thing: Suburbicon is just dull and unremarkable as they come. Do not be fooled by the retro, nostalgic aesthetic of the film, or the false promises of a hilarious and darkly satirical morality tale. It is tonally inconsistent and just badly-written (and considering the writing team shares 11 Academy Awards between them, it is even worse). Suburbicon just isn’t nearly as effective as it wants to be. Such a pity, this could’ve been great.