Academy Award winners Matt Damon and Julianne Moore star in Suburbicon dark satire about a seemingly perfect life during the ’50s.
Directed by George Clooney from a script by Clooney, Grant Heslov and Academy Award–winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, Suburbicon movie follows couple Gardner Logde (Damon) and Margaret (Moore) and the racial tensions that arise in a suburb during the ’50s.
Gardner Lodge (Damon) is a family man who needs to make an alteration to his domestic situation. He is in love with Margaret (Moore), his wife’s sister, rendering his wife (also played by Moore) an inconvenience. Gardner and Margaret hatch a plan to stage a home invasion, get rid of the wife, collect the insurance money, and run away to Aruba. But things get complicated, particularly with the interference of an enterprising insurance investigator (Oscar Isaac). To make matters more complicate, the African America family next door seems to get all the blame for the wrongdoings in the community.
“This (film) seems to reflect that and I think that’s probably a fair thing to do. But I didn’t want this to just be a civics lesson. I wanted it to be funny, but it’s certainly angry.” —George Clooney on Suburbicon
“People are angry. We’re angry at ourselves, at the way the country is going, the way the world is going,” Clooney said during the Venice Film Festival (VFF). “This (film) seems to reflect that and I think that’s probably a fair thing to do. But I didn’t want this to just be a civics lesson. I wanted it to be funny, but it’s certainly angry and it got angrier as we were shooting.”
Highlighting white privilege during the period that mirrors what the world is facing today, Moore says she can relate to the social unrest facing the divided issues in the U.S.
“The only way [the young generation will get better] is if the generation before them is doing that as well,” she said during the VFF. “In the U.S., people are arguing about monuments. They must be removed. You simply cannot have these figures from the Civil War in town squares and universities for our children to see.”
But on a lighter note, Damon says that working with Clooney is always a great experience. “The key is when he gives you a piece of direction, you do the exact opposite,” he quipped. “It’s like he’s the greatest director in the world. You are always locked in, know exactly what to do and it’s great.”
Suburbicon movie debuts as a TIFF 17 Special Presentation on September 9.
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