You'd think only good fun could come from George Clooney directing Matt Damon in Suburbicon. Apparently not so. The satire touching on murder, fraud, and also racism in 1950s suburbia has just a 29% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Here's what they're saying.
- "There's no other way to say it—this movie stinks," writes Katie Walsh at Tribune News Service, throwing out a long list of adjectives: "irritating, faux-edgy, tonally wack, strained, unfunny," along with "shoddy, shameful." She complains in particular about a racism subplot that comes across as "condescending" and says the film fails by wanting us to do two things—feel upset about that subplot while finding hilarity in a "satirical family murder insurance scam. ... You can't mix nihilism and earnestness."
- Lindsey Bahr calls Suburbicon "a derivative and somewhat edgeless satire with some compelling performances nonetheless." Gary Basaraba and Oscar Isaac, specifically, are impressive, Bahr writes at the AP. But Damon and Julianne Moore aren't up to snuff. Nor is the story itself, which "doesn't even go far enough to satirize the hypocritical social mores of the time." The result feels "so much like something we've already seen before."