What strikes me about all the performances in Michael Clayton, from the top down in the cast, is how everyone does a fantastic job of under-playing their parts. George Clooney and everyone else take this story of a man who finds himself as a high-priced concierge very seriously and don’t try to create drama where it isn’t through performances that resound in a false manner. Instead they let the drama unfold from the story itself, making it truly notable in the history of modern film.
Clooney plays Clayton, a “fixer” of sorts for a law firm. The firm is representing a tobacco company that’s about to settle a major lawsuit and so tensions are running high, especially when his long-time friend and senior counsel a the firm decides to have a mental breakdown. All these things, as well as Clayton’s money problems and family tensions, lead to a conclusion that might seem like some to be anti-climatic (essentially nothing happens, or at least there’s not a lot done about what happens) but which matches the easy, skilled way in which the story has been handled up until that point.
There were three or four moments in the movie that, after it had finished, I went back and re-watched because they were so good and I think that’s the mark of a truly great movie. It made a mark, which not many films do.
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Chris Thilk