Michael Clayton

(2007)

Directed by

Tony Gilroy

Review by Zach Saltz

Michael Clayton begins with an extended monologue delivered with furious voracity by Tom Wilkinson, playing a corporate arbiter who has lost his mind after defending a morally corrupt enterprise shortchanging human lives for profit.  Contrasted with the anger and fury of Wilkinson’s voice are calm, empty, grayscale images of his New York-based law firm, void of the scattered hurry and industry we are so accustomed to seeing -- and will eventually see immediately after his speech.  It is in this last moment of serenity before the storm that will eventually plunder the moralities of the firm’s lawyers into stark ambiguity.

So begins Michael Clayton, which would be the year’s best film were it not for a peculiar flaw that hinders the film’s authenticity.  The titular hero (or antihero?), played by George Clooney, is a “fixer” at Kenner, Bach, and Ledeen; though he had been a criminal defense attorney for several years, he had found his niche (whether through his own volition or not) at resolving PR nightmares for the prestigious firm and its prized lawyers.  Michael is a little like Harvey Keitel’s character Winston “The Wolf” from Pulp Fiction, except he looks like he just walked out of a photo shoot for GQ magazine. 

Wilkinson’s character, Arthur Edens, is a disaster waiting to happen.  The senior litigating partner for the firm, Edens has been working on the defense a three billion dollar class-action suit leveled against the environmentally-ignorant UNorth corporation.  But after discovering a crucial document suggesting the guilt of the company he is defending, he goes on a tail spin, strips naked during litigation hearings, and disappears. “You’re a manic-depressive,” Michael Clayton informs him after flying to Milwaukee to quell the situation.  “I am Shiva, the god of death,” he responds.

But the story is not that clear-cut: Michael’s life is also a mess.  Divorced and facing a heap of debt in between a failed restaurant and an alcoholic brother, he is forced to ask the frustrated chief partner at the firm (Sydney Pollack, who is great at roles like these) for an $80,000 loan. “I am not a miracle worker,” he solemnly admits to a client in desperate need of immediate assistance.  “I am a janitor.”  Once in possession of the evidence pointing to the clear guilt of the multi-million dollar UNorth corporation, Michael is quickly targeted by the big interests, and we are left to ponder his sanity under severe pressure.

The flaw of Michael Clayton is the Wilkinson character; he simply does not belong in this story.  It is too hard to believe that Kenner, Bach, and Ledeen would continue to employ such a loose canon; is it not believable how Pollack’s character informs us that Arthur is, in a strange twist of fate, the firm’s expert on psychiatric commitment statutes.  It is too inconceivable to believe that Michael would not notice that he had escaped from the hotel room in Milwaukee.  And there is an utterly ridiculous phone exchange between Wilkinson and someone who he should have no business knowing and communicating with.  Fortunately, through a series of circumstances I will not expand upon, his character sees significantly smaller screen time in the latter half of the motion picture; the subsequent sections of the film feel much more lean, taut, and (most importantly) genuine.

Another positive feature of Michael Clayton is the Tilda Swinton character, as the chief litigator for the corrupt UNorth corporation; as in the opening sequence, director Tony Gilroy shows here that he is a master of contrast.  We see the Swinton character rehearse speeches while in her underwear and bathrobe, suggesting that to put forth blatant lies, she must literally cleanse herself of all guilt beforehand.  The speeches she gives in preparation are shown back-to-back with the same speeches she gives in formal clothing.  She talks before the camera and audiences but does not really say anything; though she is tantamount to nothing more than a talking head for the corporation, she is nonetheless a sympathetic character because, like Michael, her loyalties are to her peers rather than the flawed ideology and endgame of the larger enterprise.

There are a number of striking parallels between Michael Clayton and Erin Brockovich (2000).  Both title characters are outsiders employed by law firms who are able to see past the façade of corporate responsibility; both involve companies disregarding environmental sustainability; and both protagonists are shown as severely flawed, troubled characters.  But while Erin Brockovich emphasized the nonexistent charm of its hero, Michael Clayton is surprisingly effective in creating compelling, raw characters (with the exception of Wilkinson) who are not only interesting to watch at work, but also leave the viewer wanting to know more about them.  Why this fervent distrust and skepticism on the part of Michael toward everyone he knows?  What are the real intentions of the partners at the firm in their employment and deployment of Michael?  How guilty really is the Tilda Swinton character?

It was said that, after the runaway success of John Grisham and the legal genre in paperback and onscreen, lawyers had replaced army platoons and detectives as the film industry’s favorite breed of hero.  But with Michael Clayton, we see a man who is woefully unsure about what the right thing to do or whether he possesses the best resources to do it, which makes the Clooney performance all the more compelling.  We are used to seeing him as the ever-cool Danny Ocean, not this troubled or guilt-ridden.  Clooney deserves an Oscar nomination, and despite the aforementioned shortcoming, this is one of the year’s best motion pictures.

Rating:

# 5 of 2007