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Saturday, November 14, 2026Nov 14

Clooney depicts American dream as nightmare in ‘Suburbicon’

Actor George Clooney smiles as he arrives on a motorboat during the 74th edition of the Venice Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017. (Ettore Ferrari/ANSA via AP)
Actor George Clooney smiles as he arrives on a motorboat during the 74th edition of the Venice Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017. (Ettore Ferrari/ANSA via AP)

VENICE, Italy (AP) – George Clooney has arrived in Venice with a twisted tale of darkness at the heart of the American dream.

Clooney is at the Venice Film Festival as a director with “Suburbicon,” a satirical thriller starring Matt Damon and Julianne Moore as residents of a seemingly idyllic suburban community.

The film is based on a script by Joel and Ethan Coen and partly inspired by 1957 events in Levittown, Pennsylvania, where white residents erupted in fury at the arrival of a black family.

The images of white rage feel unnervingly contemporary, recalling recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Clooney has said it’s an angry movie that he hopes will “pick some fights.”