Michael Clayton: The Bad and the Beautiful
March 31, 2008
: 
The Bad and the Beautiful, October 12, 2007Tony Gilroy has already proven that he can weave/write a great story via his writing for the "Bourne" franchise. And the striking thing about "Michael Clayton" is how Gilroy has written ironic, conflicted, complicated characters that are at once "good" (and in the world that Gilroy has created here…this is in itself a term that is up for interpretation) yet are often bad as in unethical, mean, misanthropic.
These characters can and do betray themselves and others: There’s no one to truly love or hate, from Sydney Pollack’s quietly devious law firm CEO, to Tom Wilkinson’s holy madman of an ace courtroom defense attorney, to Tilda Swinton as a tricky senior partner in nice suits that peel off to reveal sweaty armpits and a gift for rationalization.
Even our hero, Michael Clayton as portrayed by George Clooney is a loser: a 12 year veteran at his law firm who is utilized as a bag man, a fixer usually dispatched to do what amounts to private eye work.: cleaning up the firm’s client messes.
Clayton is a failure both professionally and personally: a failure as a father, brother, husband and Clooney strikes just the right notes here as Clayton struggles, fights to regain his dignity both as an officer of the court and more importantly as a father and a human being.
The central plot revolves around a large chemical firm’s responsibility for sickness and deaths in a farm community and because Gilroy weaves and bobs among the big ensemble cast and among the various plot points, I was hard pressed to figure out just exactly what was going on for the first half hour. But this is to Gilroy’s credit: he refuses to foreshadow or explain thus adding texture and ambiguity to the film.
Moral and social dilemmas multiply as "Michael Clayton" races to its exciting denouement: a denouement that satisfies both emotionally and morally. Yet all is not as it seems here as Gilroy manages to leave a small festering wound of deceit and decay not quite healed: ready to re-open and re-infect itself.
