Suburbicon is a 2017 American black comedy film written and directed by George Clooney, and co-written by the Coen brothers and Grant Heslov. The film stars Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Noah Jupe, and Oscar Isaac, and follows a mild-mannered father who must face his demons after a home invasion shakes his quaint neighborhood in 1959. It is loosely based on a 1957 incident in Levittown, Pennsylvania, in which a black family moved into the previously all-white neighborhood, leading to racism and violence against the family.
Principal photography began in October 2016 in Los Angeles. Suburbicon premiered in the main competition section of the 74th Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2017, then screened at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival, and was theatrically released in the United States on October 27, 2017. It received mixed reviews from critics and criticism for its plot, and earned only $12 million at the box office against its $25 million budget.
Plot
In 1959, the peaceful, all-white neighborhood of Suburbicon is shaken up by the arrival of an African-American family, the Mayers.
Gardner Lodge, a mild-mannered family man, lives with his paraplegic wife Rose, their son Nicky and Rose’s twin sister Margaret in Suburbicon. One night, two robbers, Sloan and Louis, break into the Lodge family home, tie the entire family up and kill Rose with an overdose of chloroform. Margaret moves in to help take care of Nicky. Soon after her sister’s death, Margaret begins to transform herself into Rose, dyeing her hair blonde and having sex with Gardner.
The Lodges are called into the police station to identify Sloan and Louis, but both Gardner and Margaret say that the police have the wrong men, even as Nicky recognizes them as his mother’s murderers. Soon afterward, Sloan shows up at Gardner’s job and demands the money that he owes him and Louis – payment for killing Rose. When Gardner refuses to pay, Sloan and Louis plan to return to his house and kill Nicky and Margaret.
As tensions mount between the residents of Suburbicon and their new African-American neighbors, charismatic insurance agent Bud Cooper arrives one day when Gardner is not home and begins asking Margaret questions, looking to clear up red flags in a life insurance claim made on Rose by Gardner shortly after her death. Cooper tells Margaret he suspects her and Gardner of murdering Rose to collect on her policy, and Margaret kicks him out of the house.
That night, as a prolonged protest at the home of the new African-American residents turns into a riot, Cooper returns to talk directly to Gardner. He tells Gardner that he knows the nature of his and Margaret’s insurance fraud plan and attempts to blackmail them into giving him their entire payout in exchange for his silence. Margaret poisons his coffee with lye, and Gardner stabs him with a fireplace poker to finish him off. Gardner leaves to hide his body, trailed by Sloan.
Margaret attempts to poison Nicky with a sandwich and milk after he eavesdropped on her conversation with Cooper and contacted his Uncle Mitch for help. The increasingly suspicious Nicky does not eat the sandwich and, as Margaret is admitting defeat, Louis strangles her to death before heading upstairs to deal with Nicky. Mitch arrives and saves Nicky by shooting Louis dead. Mitch gives Nicky a gun and hides him in the closet before succumbing to a stab wound inflicted by Louis.
On the way home from disposing of Cooper’s body, Gardner is taunted by Sloan, who is suddenly killed by a fire truck. Arriving home, he finds the bodies of Margaret, Mitch, and Louis, and gets Nicky out of the closet. He offers Nicky a choice: he can go along with a plan to cash out an insurance claim and run away to Aruba, or Gardner will kill him and blame his death on Sloan and Louis.
The next morning, Gardner is dead, having consumed Margaret’s poisoned sandwich and milk during his conversation with Nicky. Nicky calmly goes outside to play ball with Andy, the son of the African-American family next door, after the family has cleaned up the remnants of the previous night’s riot.
Cast
Matt Damon as Gardner Lodge, Nicky’s father
Julianne Moore as Rose and Margaret
Noah Jupe as Nicky Lodge, Gardner’s son
Oscar Isaac as Bud Cooper, the insurance claims investigator
Glenn Fleshler as Ira Sloan, a hitman
Alex Hassell as Louis, Sloan’s partner
Megan Ferguson as June
Jack Conley as Hightower
Gary Basaraba as Uncle Mitch
Michael D. Cohen as Stretch
Richard Kind as John Sears
Karimah Westbrook as Mrs. Mayers
Leith Burke as Mr. Mayers
Tony Espinosa as Andy Mayers
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