Michael Clayton’s Meaning of Life
George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson

By Breanne Boland October 18, 2007 Issue

George Clooney steps away from his usual charm to give a low-key but nuanced performance as the conflicted Michael Clayton. Clayton is a “fixer” for a high-powered law firm — he refers to himself as a janitor. When the rich stumble and the influential find themselves helpless, Clayton arrives to guide the fallen through their last options.

His most challenging fix yet comes in the form of a long-time colleague who goes off his meds and ends up stripping naked in the middle of an important deposition for a decade-long class-action lawsuit. Tom Wilkinson as Arthur Edens comes off as manic and mad, but in between declarations of grandeur, his ravings begin to make sense to Clayton. It’s obvious that this meltdown was caused by his mental illness, but Clayton realizes that, whatever the source, he may be right; they both may be on the wrong side after all. His friend seeks to provide the other side with the evidence they need to triumph. Clayton is tasked with damage control, but finds himself conflicted about yet again covering up the truth.

The target of the class action suit is UNorth, a seemingly benevolent maker of pesticides and other farming chemicals. While they enjoy touting their involvement in such worthy endeavors as boosting food production, the reputation is not entirely deserved. The long legal tangle is a result of ignoring in-house lab results in favor of profit, leaving them with a 492-plaintiff lawsuit seeking more than $3 billion in restitution for hundreds of deaths.

Tilda Swinton plays the lead counsel for UNorth, a woman pushed to extreme measures to keep her company and her hard-earned position safe. Swinton is tasked with being the human face of this enormous company, and her nervous tics and fraying edges ably do the job. Despite her obvious competence, the brittle attorney has gotten in over her head. Her ambition is undermined by her talent for keeping up appearances, and her desperation leads her to consult some highly unorthodox outsiders as a means of silencing the rogue lawyer who threatens to destroy everything she’s worked for.

Swinton’s character is not the only beleaguered person gracing the screen. Though Clooney’s Clayton makes his living by patching up other people’s missteps, he’s not on such steady ground himself. A compulsive gambler and an unlucky businessman, Clayton constantly has his own problems on his mind while he picks up the pieces for his rich, entitled screw-up clients. While the script gives ample evidence of how his life is decaying, it’s the play of emotions on Clooney’s face that really shows how badly things are going. If he wants, Clooney can — and sometimes has — made a career of being cavalier, of breezily joking and beguiling audiences. As this stoic lawyer, he shows again the talent earning him an Academy Award. With a twitch, we understand the pain toward his estranged son. He glances across a room and conveys the enormity of his character’s existential crisis.

Michael Clayton is a complicated movie, full of legal issues and long-term alliances and other things that may not feel entirely clear until halfway into the film. However, beneath the clashes of corporations and legal firms, the movie showcases some brilliant character studies. Law is built upon words and endless stacks of documents. Michael Clayton’s best moments are the silent ones, when the actors stop and falter. Few of those who watch this film will be able to relate to the situations, but when Swinton and Clooney pause, alone, and think of how things went so terribly wrong, it resonates with everyone.

Bottom line: a great understated drama

Coming Attractions

Oct. 19
30 Days of Night - Every winter, certain areas of Alaska descend into darkness for a full month. Some season-wise vampires get wind of this and realize it creates a 30-day hunting season for the unwitting humans who live there.

Rendition - Reese Witherspoon goes into panicked, dramatic mode as a woman whose husband is detained as a suspected terrorist. While she tries to get answers, Jake Gyllenhaal’s rookie CIA analyst questions the methods used for interrogation.

Things We Lost in the Fire - After her husband dies, a woman is comforted when his best friend, also reeling from recent events, moves in with her and her children. With Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro.

Oct. 26
Dan in Real Life - Steve Carell goes more dramatic than usual as a single father who writes an advice column. His life turns into one of his letters when he goes home for a visit and falls for his brother’s girlfriend.

Saw IV - Blood, gore, torture, blood, gore. Oh, and torture. And some law officials have to untangle the details of Jigsaw’s foils following his death.

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