A Truthful Review: Suburbicon
As the movie starts, we're transported to the idyllic and serene town of Suburbicon, every family's dream. We see that Suburbicon have a new resident, an African-American family, the Mayers. As soon as the town's current residents see this, like open milk, things quickly go sour. The movie is set in the 1950s and is trying to depict the racist nature of people at that time.
The movie focuses on the Lodge family, the typical dysfunctional American family, struggling with financial issues and a great deal of resentment between Gardner and his wife, Rose. I like how the movie makes it seem as though Gardner, is honest working man that would do anything for his family, but as we reach the conclusion of the movie, we soon realize there's something darker going on in the background. We discover that Gardner is involved with a loan shark in the mob and paid those two thugs to break into his house and murder Rose, by overdosing her with chloroform. Gardner grieving over the loss of his secret lover, Margaret, becomes emotionally upset and even threatens to kill Nicky if he doesn't comply with his plan, showing that at this point he's a loose cannon.
You would think that the Police Chief would be more suspicious of Gardner than he is in the movie, drop in and peek around inside the house, get an idea of the family's dynamic. Especially since the Police Chief has an idea that Gardner might be connected to the mob through the loan shark, Rissole? A few tough questions and he could possibly catch them in a lie, I just think it's convenient that throughout the whole timeline of the movie, he doesn't once drop in or do a steak out outside the house.
In the movie, we feel pity for Nicky, seeing as Nicky is probably going to need a lot of counselling after the events. We wonder if he's mentally sound especially seeing as he acts normal as his father lies dead on the kitchen table, with Nicky watching TV and acting as though everything was alright, when he's lost every adult close to him, his father, mother, uncle and aunt. Hear me out okay? Let's assume that this is in the year 1950 and Nicky is 10 years old. The biggest event that happens in the 1950s is the Vietnam War and the average drafting age in the Vietnam War is 20, the Vietnam War ended on April 30, 1975. So, I'm thinking at some point in the next 10 years that Nicky is probably going to enroll in the army and if he isn't already traumatized from these events, the fact that many veterans from the Vietnam War suffered from PTSD is a major indicator that either Nicky will end up dead or suffering from it or avoiding Vietnam War completely, but may have some issues further up the line.
There's a strong theme of racism in the movie. Although the movie does focus on the Lodge family, it did give us an insight into the Mayers family to show the audience what life was like from their point of view. We can see that relations between the white residents become strained as the white residents don't want the Mayers in their "perfect neighborhood", subjecting them to harassment, although they didn't do anything that would either to provoke or encourage them to react in such a way. It starts with isolation by constructing high fences around the property, so that they feel as nobody is supporting them. Then, they try to force them out by increasing the prices of the goods at the supermarket and surrounding the property and tormenting them. The sheer number of people surrounding the property increases and they begin to get more agitated as time goes on and this results in rioting and the trashing of the entire area. It shows how resilient the Mayers family is in the wake of this chaos. We even see how racist the Police Chief is, he asks if Gardner is Jewish based on his last name, Gardner isn't Jewish, but we can see that the Police Chief is on the hunt for anyone that has a different ethnic background or race. This just displays how racism infiltrated the police system.
What I dislike about the movie in general is the fact that the movie doesn't explain why Gardner would murder his own wife. It does mention that Rose loathes her own husband due to the fact that her husband was driving at the time of the incident that puts it into her the wheelchair. She possibly blames him for the fact that she's resigned to a wheelchair for the rest of her life, I wish we got to see the personal relationship between the husband and wife to get a better understanding of how they feel about each other. I think it's clever how the movie starts with a few characters and we're promptly introduced to a couple more characters and subsequently, the movie begins to kill off his characters coming up to the end of the movie, reducing the characters that the audience focuses, until there's nobody left but Nicky, telling the audience that he's true hero in this dark comedy.
Rating: 6.5/10
The movie focuses on the Lodge family, the typical dysfunctional American family, struggling with financial issues and a great deal of resentment between Gardner and his wife, Rose. I like how the movie makes it seem as though Gardner, is honest working man that would do anything for his family, but as we reach the conclusion of the movie, we soon realize there's something darker going on in the background. We discover that Gardner is involved with a loan shark in the mob and paid those two thugs to break into his house and murder Rose, by overdosing her with chloroform. Gardner grieving over the loss of his secret lover, Margaret, becomes emotionally upset and even threatens to kill Nicky if he doesn't comply with his plan, showing that at this point he's a loose cannon. You would think that the Police Chief would be more suspicious of Gardner than he is in the movie, drop in and peek around inside the house, get an idea of the family's dynamic. Especially since the Police Chief has an idea that Gardner might be connected to the mob through the loan shark, Rissole? A few tough questions and he could possibly catch them in a lie, I just think it's convenient that throughout the whole timeline of the movie, he doesn't once drop in or do a steak out outside the house.
In the movie, we feel pity for Nicky, seeing as Nicky is probably going to need a lot of counselling after the events. We wonder if he's mentally sound especially seeing as he acts normal as his father lies dead on the kitchen table, with Nicky watching TV and acting as though everything was alright, when he's lost every adult close to him, his father, mother, uncle and aunt. Hear me out okay? Let's assume that this is in the year 1950 and Nicky is 10 years old. The biggest event that happens in the 1950s is the Vietnam War and the average drafting age in the Vietnam War is 20, the Vietnam War ended on April 30, 1975. So, I'm thinking at some point in the next 10 years that Nicky is probably going to enroll in the army and if he isn't already traumatized from these events, the fact that many veterans from the Vietnam War suffered from PTSD is a major indicator that either Nicky will end up dead or suffering from it or avoiding Vietnam War completely, but may have some issues further up the line.
There's a strong theme of racism in the movie. Although the movie does focus on the Lodge family, it did give us an insight into the Mayers family to show the audience what life was like from their point of view. We can see that relations between the white residents become strained as the white residents don't want the Mayers in their "perfect neighborhood", subjecting them to harassment, although they didn't do anything that would either to provoke or encourage them to react in such a way. It starts with isolation by constructing high fences around the property, so that they feel as nobody is supporting them. Then, they try to force them out by increasing the prices of the goods at the supermarket and surrounding the property and tormenting them. The sheer number of people surrounding the property increases and they begin to get more agitated as time goes on and this results in rioting and the trashing of the entire area. It shows how resilient the Mayers family is in the wake of this chaos. We even see how racist the Police Chief is, he asks if Gardner is Jewish based on his last name, Gardner isn't Jewish, but we can see that the Police Chief is on the hunt for anyone that has a different ethnic background or race. This just displays how racism infiltrated the police system.
What I dislike about the movie in general is the fact that the movie doesn't explain why Gardner would murder his own wife. It does mention that Rose loathes her own husband due to the fact that her husband was driving at the time of the incident that puts it into her the wheelchair. She possibly blames him for the fact that she's resigned to a wheelchair for the rest of her life, I wish we got to see the personal relationship between the husband and wife to get a better understanding of how they feel about each other. I think it's clever how the movie starts with a few characters and we're promptly introduced to a couple more characters and subsequently, the movie begins to kill off his characters coming up to the end of the movie, reducing the characters that the audience focuses, until there's nobody left but Nicky, telling the audience that he's true hero in this dark comedy.
Rating: 6.5/10
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