SEATTLE RED

No market for mauling the middle class

Nov 4, 2017, 9:20 AM

suburbicon...

Suburbicon, the prestigious new movie release from director George Clooney, features Matt Damon and Julianne Moore with a screenplay co-written by the Oscar-winning Coen brothers.

The film opened with high hopes on more than 2,000 screens, but proved to be a commercial disaster with just $2.8 million on opening weekend. Even more shocking, Suburbicon got a dismal D-minus grade from CinemaScore–showing the few folks who paid money to see it said they unequivocally hated it.

Why the negative response?

It’s billed as an expose of “white privilege” — depicting a fictional suburb in 1959 that reacts to its first black family with disgusting violence and bigotry, while highlighting corruption, adultery and murder by the seemingly bland middle-class family at the center of the dark comedy.

Read Tom Tangney’s ‘Suburbicon’ review

Actually, the public is tired of Hollywood plutocrats who look down on the hard-working, decent suburban lives that many citizens live, and loathes the condescending assumption that the American dream has become the American nightmare.

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No market for mauling the middle class