| Director | George Clooney |
|---|---|
| Genre | crime thriller film, drama film |
| Runtime | 105 min |
| Country | United States |
| Budget | $25 million |
| Box office | $12.8 million |
In the late spring of 1959, the peaceful, all-white neighborhood of Suburbicon is shaken by the arrival of the black Mayers family.
Gardner Lodge, a seemingly mild-mannered family man, lives in Suburbicon with his paraplegic wife, Rose, and their son, Nicky. One night when Rose's identical twin sister, Margaret, is staying over, two robbers, Sloan and Louis, break into his house, tie the whole family up, and knock them out with chloroform. Rose receives an overdose and never regains consciousness. After the funeral, Margaret moves in to help take care of Nicky and soon begins to transform herself into Rose, dyeing her hair blonde and having sex with Gardner.
The Lodges are called to the police station to identify Sloan and Louis, but both Gardner and Margaret say the police have the wrong men, even though Nicky recognizes them as his mother's murderers. Soon after this, Sloan and Louis show up at Gardner's job and demand the money he owes them as payment for killing Rose. When Gardner refuses to pay, they make plans to kill Nicky and Margaret.
With tensions mounting between the residents of Suburbicon and their new black neighbors the Mayers, charismatic insurance agent Bud Cooper arrives on the Lodge's doorstep one day when Gardner is not home and begins to question Margaret. He initially says he is simply looking to clear up red flags in a life insurance claim Gardner made on Rose, but eventually admits to Margaret that he suspects her and Gardner of murdering Rose to collect on the policy, at which point Margaret kicks him out of the house.
That night, as the protracted protest at the Mayers' home turns into a riot, Cooper returns to talk with Gardner. He tells Gardner that he knows the nature of his and Margaret's insurance-fraud plan and attempts to blackmail them into giving him their entire payout in exchange for his silence. Margaret poisons his coffee with lye, and Gardner bashes his head in with a fireplace poker to finish him off. Gardner leaves to hide the body, trailed by Sloan.
Margaret attempts to kill Nicky with a poisoned sandwich and milk after she catches him calling his Uncle Mitch for help, but he refuses to leave his room. Louis enters and strangles Margaret to death. He heads upstairs to murder Nicky, but Mitch arrives just in time and shoots Louis dead. Mitch gives Nicky his gun and hides the boy in a closet before succumbing to a stab wound inflicted by Louis.
On the way home from disposing of Cooper's body, Gardner is taunted by Sloan, who is suddenly hit and killed by a fire truck that was speeding to a fire started by the rioters at the Mayers' home. At his own house, he discovers the bodies of Margaret, Mitch, and Louis, and finds Nicky in the closet. Gardner offers Nicky a choice: to go along with his plan to take the insurance money and run away to Aruba, or die, with Gardner claiming his son was yet another of Louis' victims.
The next morning, Gardner is dead, having consumed the poisoned sandwich and milk during his conversation with Nicky. Nicky calmly goes outside to play ball with Andy, the young son of the Mayer family whom he has befriended, while his parents and a few members of the community clean up the mess left in the wake of the riot.