Michael Clayton

If There Will Be Blood sports the best closing scene of 2007, then Michael Clayton certainly takes the gold for best film opener. Over images of the darkened offices of powerhouse Manhattan law firm Kenner Bach and Ledeen, a voice spins a manic monologue recounting his crisis of conscience as a litigator for the same firm. The viewer takes in the sleek, immaculate, cold rooms as they are being cleaned by anonymous janitorial staff while the urgent, near whispering voice speaks of the revolting horrors that are perpetrated when those rooms are occupied. The speech comes to a frantic climax as the image cuts from an empty conference room to one bustling with dozens of lawyers rushing to and from, presumably carrying out the same evils that the voice had moments before been so forcefully lamenting. The scene grabs you immediately, suggesting that the prestigious amenities that are the rewards for toiling for a powerful corporate entity can become a claustrophobic prison for those who begin to question the morality of their work.


C.S. Lewis once wrote that most of the world’s evil is generated “in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice." Tony Gilroy’s elegant, powerful directorial debut asks the question: how do these well-manicured men at the heart of bureaucratic wickedness live with themselves? He asks this question through a plot about corporate conspiracies that recall the post-Watergate paranoid cinema of The Parallax View and Silkwood, but Gilroy is less interested in plot mechanics than in the close observation of people who struggle to define their humanity while trapped in the gears of an inhuman system.


George Clooney stars as the title character, a fixer for Kenner Bach and Ledeen who specializes in helping the firm’s rich and powerful clients get out of personal legal difficulties. In his own words, he’s a “janitor,” a vastly better paid version of the men who vacuum the firm’s office floors at night. He is charged with the task of smoothing things out when Tom Wilkinson (the man behind the opening monologue), either suffers a nervous breakdown or experiences a moment of moral clarity, depending on the perspective. Wilkinson has been the lead defense counsel in a class action law suit against an agribusiness giant accused of poisoning hundreds of small farmers across the Midwest. Then, one day, he strips naked during a deposition and professes his love for one of the main plaintiffs. Clooney’s Clayton is brought in reassure the client, and to get Wilkinson back on the team. He is a man who has accepted his place in the corporate food chain by focusing on satisfying family obligations and distracting himself from his doubts with compulsive gambling. When Wilkinson suddenly questioning all of the underlying realities of their line of work, it forces Clooney to take a penetrating look at how what he does for a living impacts who he is as a person. The film takes place largely in chilly corporate environments: glass fronted office buildings, plush offices, the interiors of luxury sedans. Meanwhile, the camera focuses on the eyes of the people trapped in these spaces.


Tilda Swinton plays the closest thing the film has to a villain, the in-house counsel for the poison-spewing corporation, but even her character struggles under the weight of expectations and the necessity of keeping up appearances. Gilroy illustrates her unspoken terror by cutting between scenes of her confident public presentations to stockholders and interviewers and the panicky rituals of preparation she goes through in her sterile hotel room that precede these presentations. She compulsively practices her speeches in front of the mirror, eyes silently screaming. It’s no accident that the pantyhose she dons before one big meeting are control tops. Swinton is the mastermind of the conspiracy that propels the film’s plot, but the real bad guy is a faceless corporate machinery that essentially bribes people into ignoring their consciences.
Even with the shadowy corporation carrying out murders and surveillance, there isn’t much conventional suspense in Michael Clayton. The drama lies in watching the self-loathing tear these characters apart and waiting to see how they attempt to reconcile the demands of their humanity with the demands of their livelihood. Swinton and Clooney make this struggle compelling by presenting subtle gestures that suggest the turmoil of their minds. Clooney in particular is fantastic: his character keeps his feelings extremely close to the vest in his dialogue, but his wounded eyes tell another story. Only Wilkinson is allowed to bust loose and swing for the fences in a theatrical turn reminiscent of Peter Finch’s Howard Beale from Network. That’s as it should be: because he is no longer at constant war with himself, suppressing his ethical instincts out of greed and facile self-justification, he has the freedom to be fully human.

Score: 9.0