Suburbicon (2017)
Directed by George Clooney
Yes — Suburbicon is woke, scoring 60 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
George Clooney's Suburbicon arrives with a curious structure: two films stitched at the seam, one a Coen brothers crime confection about insurance fraud and a poisoned sandwich, the other a historical dramatization of the Myers family, the only Black household in all-white Levittown, Pennsylvania in 1957.
Consciousness Markers
The film explicitly dramatizes 1950s white suburban racism, with the Mayers family facing organized harassment and a riot, loosely based on the real 1957 Levittown, Pennsylvania incident.
Critics noted the film is 'too obvious' in its satirical juxtaposition of murder and racial commentary, delivering its message about American hypocrisy with a heavy, didactic hand.
The leads are an all-white ensemble (Damon, Moore, Isaac), but the film foregrounds a Black family, the Mayers, played by Karimah Westbrook and Tony Espinosa, whose presence drives a major subplot.
The satire targets the hypocrisy of postwar suburban conformity, insurance fraud, and the rotten morality beneath the squeaky-clean American Dream, though it is more a critique of suburban hypocrisy than of capitalism itself.
The film resurrects a largely forgotten real incident of racial violence in Levittown and folds it into a fictional crime narrative, offering a pointed revision of nostalgic 1950s suburbia.
Julianne Moore's twin sisters are scheming femme fatales and murderers rather than vehicles for any feminist statement; the film offers no gender-equity agenda.
No LGBTQ+ characters or themes appear anywhere in the film.
There is no environmental or climate-related content in the film.
Rose's paraplegia is a plot device for the murder scheme, not a body-positivity statement.
No neurodivergent characters or themes are present.
Why it received this score
George Clooney's Suburbicon arrives with a curious structure: two films stitched at the seam, one a Coen brothers crime confection about insurance fraud and a poisoned sandwich, the other a historical dramatization of the Myers family, the only Black household in all-white Levittown, Pennsylvania in 1957. The crime plot gets the screen time. The racial plot gets the conscience. Neither benefits from the arrangement.
The Mayers family, played with quiet dignity by Karimah Westbrook and Tony Espinosa, moves into a neighborhood that responds with petitions, harassment, and eventually a full riot while white residents watch from lawn chairs. This is the film's most substantive gesture, an unflinching portrait of suburban racism that has been largely erased from the era's nostalgic self-image. It is also delivered with a sledgehammer. Critics called the juxtaposition obvious, and they were right. The film sets murder beside mob violence and invites us to draw the conclusion, then draws it again, then underlines it twice.
Elsewhere the ledger is thin. Julianne Moore's twin sisters scheme and poison without advancing any argument about women. Rose's paraplegia is a mechanism, not a statement. The satire of postwar conformity and insurance fraud bites at suburban hypocrisy but keeps its distance from any broader economic critique. There is no LGBTQ content, no environmental concern, no engagement with neurodivergence or body image. What remains is a handsomely photographed misfire, watchable and muddled, that earns its D-minus from audiences honestly.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
In the quiet family town of Suburbicon during the 1950s, the best and worst of humanity is hilariously reflected through the deeds of seemingly ordinary people. When a home invasion turns deadly, a picture-perfect family turns to blackmail, revenge and murder.
Questions about Suburbicon
Is Suburbicon woke?
Yes — Suburbicon is woke, scoring 60 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Woke.
What makes Suburbicon woke?
5 of the 10 markers register at 30 or above, led by Racial Consciousness (80), Lecture Energy (50) and Eat the Rich (45). On Racial Consciousness: The film explicitly dramatizes 1950s white suburban racism, with the Mayers family facing organized harassment and a riot, loosely based on the real 1957 Levittown, Pennsylvania incident.
How does Suburbicon compare to other 2017 movies?
It ranks #18 of the 309 films from 2017 we've scored; their average is 19. The wokest is I Am Not Your Negro (92).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.