Review

Review Date: 14-October-07
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Juicy

Michael Clayton (2007)

"Michael Clayton" is the dramatic cousin of "Jerry Maguire," a movie about a handsome hero played by a major star who discovers that his neglected conscience is still alive. It is a better movie, however, with a tighter focus and sharper lines. And unlike Tom Cruise in the mid-nineties, star George Clooney looks tired. Bone tired. Here is a man who left a modest suburban family with its share of hardship for the big-money glamour of a Manhattan law firm where he doesn't litigate, he regulates. Bypassing the courtroom, he works in private mansions and wood-paneled offices helping wealthy clients avoid punishment for the bad or stupid things they have done. He has money troubles nevertheless, including a failed restaurant and a gambling habit under tenuous control. His life looks polished from the outside but Michael Clayton is a mess.

In a clever moment at the beginning (revisited later with the weight of the story behind it), Clayton notices that the GPS unit in his Mercedes has gone haywire: he will have a hard time figuring out how to go. What he doesn't yet realize is the importance of where he has been. A few days previous, his mentor at the law firm (Tom Wilkinson) went crazy while meeting with a high-profile client, a chemical company called U/North that is embroiled in a class action lawsuit. Dispatched as usual to clean up the mess, Clayton took the precarious position of trying to protect his friend as well as the client. This alienated U/North's general counsel (Tilda Swinton), a bundle of nerves in a business suit. Clayton initially ascribed the incident to his friend's failure to take his meds, but then he uncovered evidence that U/North did knowingly market a poisonous chemical to the plaintiffs involved in the suit. It appears that his mentor was not just imbalanced but tormented by guilt and hungry for redemption. Now he has to decide what, if anything, he should do about it.

The greatest pleasure of "Michael Clayton" is how it argues that real personal power stems from obeying one's conscience instead of overcoming it. My two favorite scenes illustrate this point. In one, Swinton's trembling, sweating corporate shark orders a murder from a hit man through halting innuendo and a jaunt around the proverbial bush, just like a seventh grader trying to negotiate a date. In the other, Clayton looks his son in the eye and delivers probably the only valuable lesson of his questionable paternal career: he predicts, nay, wills that the boy will grow up strong and never need wonder why bad shit is happening to him. This is the moment when you know that Clayton gets it. Those who seek power through quick fixes and back doors end up sabotaging themselves.

And so it happens, in a satisfying finale where the (almost literally) resurrected hero makes his choice and takes his stand. He has paid a price but knows that it was worth it, as we do. "Michael Clayton" finds a hopeful message in harsh situations which may occur every day. It is worth watching this well-mounted film and taking its message to heart.

Copyright © 2007 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.