Michael Clayton: A combination of everything good
Michael Clayton, George Clooney’s latest movie, is up for best picture, and I believe Clooney is up for best actor as well. In the movie, Clooney plays a lawyer who is considered a “fixer-upper,” and just does all of his firm’s dirty work. The case that Clayton’s firm is working on deals with a company called UNorth, who makes pesticides and other chemicals. A class action lawsuit has been brought against UNorth in terms of billions of dollars because they made faulty pesticides, which caused tissue deterioration in many farmers and was blamed for the deaths of 430+ farmers who died as a result of UNorth’s negligence.
One of Michael’s coworkers named Arthur, who was originally heading the defense for UNorth, realizes what he is doing defending a company that has killed so many (“I have blood on my hands Michael!” as he often exclaims), and thus he goes crazy. During all of this there are many plot twists involved, and who is good and who is bad seems to get jumbled together and get confusing at times.
It seems though that Michael Clayton is a deserving nomination for best picture and best actor, as Clooney did an amazing job acting, and when the film ends and you realize who has won and who has lost, you feel good “supporting” Michael through everything that has happened. Tilda Swinton also very much deserved best supporting actress as the nervous, paranoid executive at UNorth.
Also, Michael Clayton managed to provide a combination of what everyone wants, a little bit of humor here, a little bit of action and cars exploding there, and a lot of wit, good writing, acting and plot twists.
