At once a condemning-if-familiar polemic against corporate America’s treatment of the working man, “Michael Clayton” delves into the lives of the people who work for these monolithic entities and the ethical black hole they find themselves in. But “Clayton” also struggles under the weight of its self-importance throughout the nearly two-hour running time.
Screenwriter Tony Gilroy’s (The “Bourne” trilogy, “The Devil’s Advocate”) directorial debut is beautifully crafted as a slow-burn thriller, but it fails to provide new insight on a well-worn theme.
A corporate-fixer for a professional law firm, Michael (played here by a less-charismatic-than-usual George Clooney) can solve any problem plaguing the upper-echelons of the business world. The only problems he can’t solve are his own.
Beguiled by financial debts and disconnected from his relationship to his son, Michael is disillusioned with his work, referring to himself as a “janitor” who cleans up the messes of the rich and powerful so that they don’t have to face the consequences. Michael takes on his biggest gambit yet when he’s tasked to take care of Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), a top litigator who suffers from a mental breakdown during a deposition for a multibillion dollar class-action lawsuit involving agriculture conglomerate U/North. Michael’s adventures in corporate wrangling exposes him to the possibility that U/North is––what else?––up to no good.
The premise of “Michael Clayton” is familiar, but Mr. Gilroy has decided to place it in a world that is dour and grim with ethical compromises being made left and right. Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), the chief counsel for U/North, struggles to protect the company from Michael’s inquiries. She’s the stock villain – portrayed in androgynous tones and cut off from personal relationships to emphasize her cold-heartedness – but Swinton exposes her vulnerability to the audience beneath the glassy visage, the only glimpse of Karen’s humanity being when she nervously recites business speeches in front of the mirror. Karen is dedicated to her work, but she clearly makes mistakes.
Michael is constantly referred to as a “miracle worker,” but we never actually see him being the brilliant fixer that he’s supposed to be. After seventeen years of wading through the muck, he’s tired. Clooney’s character wrestles with his concepts of “right” and “wrong” as more evidence of U/North’s offenses pile up in front of him. Clayton presents a change from the Danny Ocean we saw earlier this summer. This is George Clooney with heavy bags under his eyes and deep wrinkles on his face. It’s George Clooney without the smug humor. Clooney’s been serious before, but as Clayton, he’s joyless.
If anything, it’s Tom Wilkinson’s character that feels out of place throughout the movie. Both Clooney and Gilroy have stated in interviews how much they admire Sidney Lumet’s “Network,” and Wilkinson’s Arthur Edens is essentially cut from the same cloth as crazed newscaster Howard Beale. The opening monologue of “Michael Clayton,” for example, is Wilkinson ranting in Chayefsky-mode about the downfall of corporate America. But “Network” is a satire, and “Clayton” is most far from being one. Wilkinson’s over-the-top antics as Edens, while well-acted, feel forced and devoid of context. Edens is supposed to be the character that we sympathize with and agree with, but at best, he’s a farce: too unhinged to believe and too cartoonish to relate to.
And perhaps this is the problem with Mr. Gilroy’s directorial debut. Despite it’s excellent acting and rapid-fire dialogue, the movie’s anti-corporatism is too apparent and incongruous with the setting that Mr. Gilroy has created. The twists and turns are all-too-predictable, and the finale that Mr. Gilroy settles on turns the movie into a very standard Hollywood affair. This is not to say that “Clayton” is bad per se: far from it: but it’s frustrating to see a filmmaker weave threads that challenge the audience only to unravel them at the last minute with been-there-done-that conventions.
