Kathleen Riley

At least there’s a Golden Retriever to save this from only getting one star. The movie premise Is weak and the basic trope of boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back is strong. The couple lacks charisma even when they are falling in love. Upside - her singing is so nasally that you can cut 20 minutes off the 2 hour movie by fast forwarding through the performances. The musical performances stop the movie dead I its tracks. There are better movies out there.

Suburbicon has a fantastic vintage feel from appearances to the nature of the movie. I wish the rest of the movie lived up to the aesthetics. Plenty of scenes were tossed in as perhaps social commentary - they didn’t add anything for me and seemed like an entirely different movie that could happen without any connection to Suburbicon. I’m not certain where Clooney was headed with transitions throughout, they were disjointed and never got better throughout. Most of the characters are excellent examples of horrible humans. Exceptions to that rule are Nicky the child, the neighboring family, Uncle Mitch and the clueless secretary. Other than that... Roger the insurance man was entertaining and his interview regarding the claim was amusing and his return visit was also good. He’s not an exception to the nasty people rule, but at least he was interesting. I’m unclear on the silent and stealthy firetrucks until the last second before they appear. I’m hopeful there is symbolism there that I’ve missed but given the rest of the movie that seems unlikely. If you’re seeking a genre movie in a similar time frame, perhaps Blue Velvet would be a better choice.