Another movie review

Michael Clayton was not what I expected. I'm not sure what I expected, but my expectations about thinking I'd like it were low. Boy, was I blown away! I will try not to be a spoiler if you haven't seen it. What an opening to a movie! I knew the ramblings of Tom Wilkinson would be important later, and tried to really pay attention. But I still ended up going online to find out exactly what he said after we finished the movie. And then I thought, oh no, another movie that tells the story backwards. I thought I was tired of that concept. But they really pulled it off here. I had heard that it moved really slowly, but I completely disagree. The thing is, I like thinking movies, where there's a great deal of talking and you really have to pay attention. The dialogue drives the plot in Michael Clayton for the most part, not the action. So I loved this movie and found it really suspenseful.

I think they got the Oscar wrong, though. Tilda Swinton won for her role as the lead cutthroat attorney for the big, mean corporation in the movie. She was good, but I thought Clooney, as the downtrodden former trial lawyer was better. Clooney's face spoke even more than his words. He was able to convey a huge unspoken range of emotion. And I thought Tom Wilkinson out-acted both of them. His performance wowed me so much that I want to look up all of his movies and start watching them one by one. I also think this movie should have won for original screenplay, even though I admit that I haven't seen the winner, Juno, yet. Focusing on the law firm representing the big, mean corporation, and whether or not they are liable for doing so, was such an original idea. Or at least was done originally. I know there have been a few movies before this one along the same line, but I don't remember any of them being as smart as this one.

On a side note, one of my favorite scenes in the movie was between Clooney and his young son Henry, played by 11-year old Austin Williams. He is trying to tell his son that he will never have to worry about being like his uncle Timmy, a drug addict, because he has such a big heart. I looked over at Jav and saw that he had tears in his eyes during the scene, and so did I. It made me wonder if we would have found the scene as moving if we didn't have a child.

We're still so behind on this last year's Oscar nominees. We need to watch Juno, Atonement and There Will Be Blood to get caught up.