Suburbicon review: Hitchcock homage is no substitute for the real thing

George Clooney is living proof that practice doesn’t make perfect.

This is his sixth film as a director, but instead of finding his voice he seems to be losing it. Based on an old script by the Coen brothers, the Fifties-set thriller feels like a bone-headed clone of Fargo.

It starts well. Young Nicky Lodge (English actor Noah Jupe), living in a supposedly peaceful, law-abiding surburban community, has his life upended when Mafia goons break into his house and not only humiliate his dad (Matt Damon) but kill his mum (Julianne Moore). As Nicky tries to make sense of the horror, you’ll experience real shivers.

But then it becomes obvious who the film’s bad guys are. And these compromised characters (who include the racists trying to rid Suburbicon of its one black family) are so clearly beyond redemption that we don’t care what happens to them.

The generic good guys are equally uninvolving (see Fargo’s one-of-a-kind Marge Gunderson for how to make virtue vital). When Oscar Isaac appears as spry, sexually magnetic insurance investigator Roger you long for him to become the focus of the plot. He’s an oasis of mystery in a sea of the expected.

Technically, Suburbicon is accomplished (a mint-green bathtub glows like Kryptonite; Moore’s skirts twirl starchily). That said, Alexandre Desplat’s soundtrack is overwrought, and paying homage to Pscyho is a particularly bad move.

While watching this movie you may find yourself dwelling fondly on the Coen brothers’ oeuvre, or even the period dramas of Todd Haynes. But once you hear those jagged strings you’re guaranteed to miss Hitch. We’re all in our private traps. And Clooney, trying to borrow from the best, walks straight into his.