Michael Clayton
Written and Directed: Tony Gilroy
Starring: George Clooney and Tom Wilkinson
The words "legal" and "thriller" mixed together have produced some very mixed and boring results before. When I saw the trailer for Michael Clayton I was less than excited. It had a great cast, but the story seemed typical (Network, anyone?) and none of it looked very interesting. I wasn't even tempted to take a look at it until Oscar nominations were being thrown at it. To be honest, the only reason I decided to watch it was because I was dedicated to seeing every best picture nomination. To my surprise, Michael Clayton is much more daring than your average legal thriller. Not so much in the point it tries to make, but in how it focuses on it's characters and their glaring faults. Be it how far they will go to succeed, or how they can fix every single problem but their own; Michael Clayton is a fascinating character study.
Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is what people in the business(the legal business, I guess) call a "fixer". His job is to come up with quick solutions for rich clients under high pressure situations. Now one of the top attorneys at the firm Clayton works at, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson) is having a breakdown. During an important deposition for the firms #1 client U-North a pharmeceutical company, Edens begins to strip naked and seemingly goes insane. Michael is sent in to rectify the situation and take care of his long time friend. Everyone thinks Arthur has simply snapped, but it becomes apparent that U-North is hiding something, something that made Arthur deeply question his own morality, and U-North's chief counsel Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) will do anything to hide it from the public.
I started to appreciate Michael Clayton during a scene where Michael pulls over his car to take in the beauty of some horses standing in a field. It is kind of odd, me finding appreciation in a movie that didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary during a scene in which the main character is finding appreciation in horses that weren't really doing anything out of the ordinary. I kind of find it amazing that Michael Clayton is not based on a book. I actually thought it was based on a book up until I started looking for that "based on the best selling novel" label. The fact that Michael Clayton is not based on a book is a testament to the film itself, the dialog feels straight out of a great novel, while the cinematography contrasts it with the kind of beautiful shots we go to see films for (in particular the scene with horses I mentioned earlier). Tony Gilroy has proven his writing skills before by adapting the Bourne screenplays but here he shows that his directing is just as good and compliments his writing very well. The acting here is phenomenal, George Clooney once again proves that he can play any role he wants and often does so, he carries the film very well. I think Tilda Swinton has won me over in just about everything she has ever been in including the mediocre comic book adaptation Constantine and she is just as good here. Tom Wilkinson's role may seem sort of like a show off "give me an oscar" role to some, but I think he genuinely does well here and avoids the oscar grabbing you would see from actors like Russel Crowe(I love you Russel, but don't you ever tell me Cinderella Man was a good movie).
So it is not when the legal plan all comes together, or when justice is served that Michael Clayton becomes a good movie. There is a moment where you realize this is much more than a legal thriller. It is during a scene in which Clayton's son is explaining a popular children's trading card series to Arthur Edens that involves everyone in a town having the same dream, but no one knows it because everyone is afraid that they are crazy. There is something oddly powerful about a moment like this, and seeing Edens react with interest and find such meaning in what is seemingly a stupid trading card game. It is just something you have to stop, look at, and appreciate.
9.1/10
0 comments:
Post a Comment