Review of Michael Clayton (2007) by Edith N — 09 Aug 2011

Actually, Calling Shiva a God of Death Is a Pretty Serious Misrepresentation.

Everyone Knew that Tom Wilkinson was going to lose Best Supporting Actor to Javier Bardem. It just went without saying. And the fact is, I have not yet seen [i]No Country for Old Men[/i], so I cannot compare the roles. However, I would at very least like to put forward my approval of how Wilkinson handled his role in this. It is awfully easy for a performance of a character in full-blown mania to be ridiculous. To be a Hollywood freak show. To be the kind of character Hollywood thinks people in full-blown mania looks like. And okay, most manic people don't strip naked in the middle of someone else's depositions. However, Wilkinson manages to restrain himself from using a lot of the more overblown mannerisms traditionally used to show mental illness in the movies. What's more, he is able to lead a normal life as long as he's medicated, and indeed he's very good at what he does.

However, the focus of our film is really the eponymous Michael Clayton (George Clooney). He is a clean-up man for the firm of Kenner, Bach, & Ledeen. They send him in to fix things which need fixed. When we first see him, he is helping to sort out a hit-and-run case. As he drives away, he stops to look at some horses by the side of the road, and his car blows up. It turns out that, four days earlier, he was sent in to help after Arthur Edens (Wilkinson) went crazy at that deposition. Arthur had declared his love for Anna (Merritt Wever), a witness in a class-action suit against U-North, makers of a chemical used in agriculture. (I didn't quite catch what the chemical was supposed to do.) Arthur holds the information that not only is the chemical dangerous but the company knows it. Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) knows that Arthur has the information and she knows that he's had a break, and she decides that she has become a liability and must be taken care of.

Here's the other thing. Tilda Swinton does a perfectly fine job in the role of an executive determined to get the best for the company at all costs, but I really don't think she was anything that outstanding. I don't think she should have beaten Cate Blanchett (up for [i]I'm Not There[/i]) or even Ruby Dee ([i]American Gangster[/i]). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she had gotten the award because so many people were torn between the other two. This is a thing which happens, and I think it probably happens more often in the female categories, because there are so seldom breathtakingly good female performances. (This is because there are so seldom breathtakingly good female roles, of course. It's still a man's business, after all.) Tilda Swinton's role would not have been in any way noteworthy had it been written for a man--and, indeed, it could have been given to a man with essentially no change in the part, which may well be why she was nominated for it. We don't expect women to act that way.

It is made very clear that Michael Clayton has no interest in being a fixer, a janitor, a miracle worker for the rest of his life. In fact, one of the driving forces of the movie is that Michael gambled with his way out of it and lost. He started a restaurant with his brother (David Lansbury), and it failed. This was his chance to make money without relying on the firm, and the fact is, all the problems he had, he caused himself. He must have known his brother was unreliable. (The implication is that the failure was not exactly a problem with the restaurant itself.) He gambled money he didn't have, apparently a minor addiction of his own. He has been a fixer for the company for a very long time, and it means he no longer has courtroom experience, and he's been there seventeen years without being made a partner. He has allowed his own resume to make him seem worthless, less than he is, and he allowed known failings to take away his escape route.

In the end, cover-ups only work so well, and so it is here. Someone always talks, and you don't have to rely on the person's being bipolar and having a minor psychotic break for it to happen. In fact, every step to keep the thing under cover leads, in the end, to the reveal. It is Arthur's conscience as much as his illness which causes his change of heart. Perhaps the way he went about it was more due to the illness, but perhaps a healthy man would have accomplished more. We don't know if his feelings for Anna were real or the illness, and of course it only matters so much, but it would be hard for anyone not a sociopath to listen to the kind of story Anna has to tell over and over again and not begin to feel something. Karen Crowder is a sociopath. Her actions in the film leave no doubt of that. It is also probably true that there are more of them in executive offices around the world than in the population at large. But "more of them" still isn't one hundred percent, and any percentage of reasonable people means that lethal secrets come out eventually.