Suburbicon
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: October 27, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
42
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 49 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
29
Negative:
13
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
The Film StageRory O'ConnorSep 6, 2017
The meat of Suburbicon is certainly Grade-A, but no expense has been spared on the trimmings either. Even the briefest supporting players are fully formed and often quite memorable. Read full review
80
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 3, 2017
It’s a movie that reels the audience in and keeps it hooked: with smart little kicks of surprise. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonOct 26, 2017
Suburbicon is a flawed attempt at dark comedy, but it’s hardly the disaster that critical buzz would have you believe. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenOct 26, 2017
The Coen brothers’ section, derived from a script they sent to Clooney in the late 1990s, is much more impactful, with Damon giving a performance that renders his character downright chilling and Jupe doing heart-rending work as a child emotionally buffeted by the grievously flawed behavior of the adults who are supposed to love and protect him. Read full review
75
The PlaylistJessica KiangSep 3, 2017
Uneven though it is, the film is peppered with enough cherishable dialogue tics and dummkopf punchlines to make it a enjoyable watch. Read full review
70
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganSep 3, 2017
Suburbicon is a solid, pleasing piece, even if it never quite reaches the bleak heights its set-up promises. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 26, 2017
Clooney is too talented and committed a filmmaker not to get in his licks. But with Suburbicon, he's made a movie that is tonally at war with itself. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfSep 10, 2017
Director George Clooney raids a leftover script by the Coen brothers that lacks the snap of their more vicious crime comedies. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerOct 28, 2017
Suburbicon, directed by George Clooney, grafts two distinctly different types of genres: the socially conscious race relations movie and grisly film noir. It’s an uneasy combo made even more so by the fact that the film noir stuff has all the juices. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattOct 26, 2017
The movie does get some fun gory mileage out of its cracked-Pleasantville premise; but mostly it feels like broad farce madly in search of a cohesive center, and a soul. Read full review
58
IndieWireBen CrollSep 3, 2017
An undeniably entertaining watch, Suburbicon stumbles when it tries to recycle effective old ingredients into something new. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenNov 1, 2017
The result is disjointed and, ironically, even falls victim to the very thing it condemns: privileging the white family’s story while relegating the African-American family’s story to background noise. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedNov 1, 2017
Part social melodrama, part violent crime drama and part send-up of family values gone haywire, it’s a curiosity that stubbornly fails to come alive until it’s almost over, and then it’s too late. Read full review
50
Paste MagazineTim GriersonOct 27, 2017
Suburbicon warns of the dangers of moral rot infesting our communities. No word yet on the effect that chronic smugness might have. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesBill ZweckerOct 26, 2017
The idea of taking a mid-1980s screenplay by the Coens’ and marrying it to a very different story, penned by Clooney and Heslov, does not work. We might have had two quite good, independent features, if those scripts had been produced into two different movies. Instead, we are presented with quite the sad mishmash of ideas here. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzOct 26, 2017
Suburbicon is a hybrid of two ideas — two movies, really — and it isn't clear whether either would have worked separately. What is clear is that they don't work together. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 25, 2017
The pleasures of Suburbicon are in the moment, and the moments fade before the next moment. There’s no build, just flashes of virtuosity — flashes ultimately in the service of nothing. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayOct 25, 2017
A movie that possesses the stylized, lethal-Looney-Tunes slapstick we’ve come to associate with Coenesque humor, as well as the fiery, thinly disguised polemic of such past Clooney projects as “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Read full review
50
New York PostSara StewartOct 25, 2017
A surprisingly tone-deaf combination of two wildly different stories that simply don’t work in concert. Read full review
50
USA TodayBrian TruittOct 25, 2017
It dips into the timely satire of mid-20th century suburbia, with inherent racism and white privilege hiding in plain sight next to picket fences and well-trimmed lawns, but rather than embracing it wholeheartedly, the narrative defaults to a lackluster murder mystery and a violent example of men and woman behaving badly. Read full review
50
The VergeBryan BishopSep 15, 2017
It’s a scattered film, making too many vital points at once. By neglecting to bring them together into one single story, Clooney undercuts them all. Read full review
50
ScreenCrushMatt SingerSep 10, 2017
The movie cuts back and forth between the two, and their themes speak to one another in some ways, but the competing narratives barely intersect. At times, it seems as if director and co-writer George Clooney made a movie where separate but equal is not only the subtext but also the organizing principle. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 9, 2017
The most charitable way to view it is as a Dadaist experiment, in which two tonally disparate movies were hacked down and their remaining strands woven together to bizarre effect. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Sep 8, 2017
The results play like some Robert Zemeckis splicing experiment gone wrong, as though Clooney had somehow digitally inserted an earnest social-issues drama into a zany mishap noir. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 3, 2017
Suburbicon is just too obvious in its satirical depiction of the dubious morality and social inequality behind the squeaky-clean façade of postwar American life, though it's watchable enough, and a distinct improvement for Clooney on his last directorial outing. Read full review
49
IGNJosh LasserNov 1, 2017
In its best moments, Suburbicon is the dark, truly funny examination of 1950s suburbia it wants to be. These moments, however, are all too rare and more often than not the story is just a flat Film Noir tale purporting to expose the evil that lurks all around us. Read full review
42
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallNov 1, 2017
George Clooney’s latest directing effort, Suburbicon, is a movie tipping off why it’s going wrong before it actually happens. Read full review
42
ConsequenceSarah KurchakSep 10, 2017
It doesn’t work on a purely aesthetic level or as a political statement, and the combination of the two goes together about as well as a mid-level Coens comedy and a morality play about racism masquerading as a thesis. Read full review
40
EmpireIan FreerNov 27, 2017
Suburbicon is a strange beast: a by-the-numbers ’40s film noir bolted to an unsatisfying ’60s racial drama wrapped up in a ’50s Americana satire. A strong cast and talented director never make the whole add up. Read full review
40
Total FilmJordan FarleyNov 22, 2017
The cast do decent work, but Clooney’s ersatz Fargo misses the mark. A Coen pastiche rather than the real deal. Read full review
40
The New YorkerAnthony LaneOct 30, 2017
So repelled is Clooney by the response of white suburbia to African-Americans, and so keen is he to insure that we share his outrage at what they endured, that he quite forgets to be interested in them. Read full review
40
The New York TimesManohla DargisOct 26, 2017
Mr. Clooney gets some things right in Suburbicon, including visually and with his two appealing child actors, who together give the movie a heartbeat.... But he skimps on the adult characters’ inner lives, and, once the narrative weight shifts to the Lodges, he never finds the tone that balances the movie’s sincerity with its nihilism. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangOct 26, 2017
In filtering a ripped-from-the-headlines story through the prism of satire, Suburbicon winds up squandering much of its power. For all that the movie borrows from history, it conveys little in the way of truth. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 3, 2017
It’s a hectic, sour and muddled film – a flailing counterfeit of satire that keeps slipping on its own banana skin supply, and never remotely gets to grips with what it thinks it’s sending up. Read full review
40
CineVueJohn BleasdaleSep 3, 2017
Clooney only shows flashes of comic moxy, and everything is drowned in a now tiresome fetishizing of the 1950s aesthetic, with gizmos and supermarkets, office furniture and hairdos glossily remade. Read full review
40
The GuardianXan BrooksSep 3, 2017
Suburbicon is too lightweight and mannered; it lacks proper fury. Watching it is like having your trouser-leg savaged by an energetic small dog. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 30, 2017
Wow. Just wow. Every year, movie theaters bring us their share of surprises – both good and bad. Suburbicon goes immediately to the front of the line of contenders for the most disappointing film of 2017. Read full review
38
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonOct 26, 2017
It all feels flat-footed and pretentious. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineKeith UhlichOct 20, 2017
Suburbicon sees a bunch of candidly left-leaning movie stars doing their best to out-awful each other. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoSep 13, 2017
The dull Suburbicon lacks in witty dialogue, interesting characters, or even visual flourishes. It is as flat as the well-manicured lawns in the idyllic neighborhood that gives it a name. Read full review
30
VoxAlissa WilkinsonSep 11, 2017
It makes a run at cleverness, trying to be a dark screwball commentary on America’s race problem. But instead it’s just a spectacular flop. Read full review
30
TimeStephanie ZacharekSep 7, 2017
George Clooney’s statement-making black comedy Suburbicon, playing in competition here at the Venice Film Festival, is a misfire on nearly all counts. Read full review
30
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeSep 3, 2017
The film veers back and forth between the obvious and the ridiculous. Read full review
25
The AtlanticDavid SimsNov 20, 2017
Had Suburbicon committed to its primary crime-caper plot, it might have been just another forgettable, uninspired film. But its attempt to haphazardly take on a weightier tale makes Suburbicon a much rarer, and more mesmerizing, kind of catastrophe. Read full review
25
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 31, 2017
With Suburbicon, George Clooney finally achieves one of his bucket-list goals as director, making a satirical misfire every bit as tone-deaf as the worst works of his movie-making mentors, the Coen Brothers. Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzOct 26, 2017
There is no harm in allowing Clooney to further stretch his directorial muscles – "Good Night, and Good Luck" is not bad – but there ought to be a law against wasting such talents as Matt Damon, Julianne Moore and poor ol' Oscar Isaac in this hollow exercise. Read full review
25
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshOct 26, 2017
Ultimately Suburbicon is woefully underwritten. Gardner and Maggie are mere sketches, a set of facial tics and accessories masquerading as real characters. Read full review
25
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 25, 2017
Suburbicon is George Clooney’s sixth feature as a director and the latest spiral downward in terms of quality. Read full review
10
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternOct 26, 2017
Suburbicon is not only unfunny, a bad sign for a black comedy, but deep-dyed dislikable. Read full review
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