Production Company: Warner Brothers Pictures
Director: Tony Gilroy
Cast: George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack, Pamela Gray
Rating: R for language, including some sexual dialogue.

By Gregg Tubbs

(UMC.org)—Adults rejoice! A bona fide grown-up drama, filled with ideas, moral dilemmas, realistic action and intelligent dialogue has arrived. And it’s got George Clooney’s star power to boot! Michael Clayton is the kind of thinking person’s drama—like Three Days of the Condor or The Parallax View—that used to be a Hollywood staple, but is now as hard to find as a film in black and white. Michael Clayton plunges us into the shadowy world of high stakes, big money, backroom deals that are hidden from all but the richest and most powerful. In a world where the risk is vast and dollars are counted in billions, right and wrong gets twisted, and sin is measured on a sliding scale. And when you get in too deep, someone like Michael Clayton bails you out. But what happens when the morally flexible “fixer” discovers his conscience?

Michael Clayton, superbly played by George Clooney, is a lawyer for a high-powered corporate law firm, but he hasn’t seen the inside of a courtroom in years. His job is to keep things out of court. Whether it’s a sexual indiscretion, a hit and run, substance abuse or corporate misdeeds, Clayton will do what it takes to “fix it” and make it go away. Money, influence and the best legal resources are at his disposal, and he possesses the moral flexibility to view it all as part of a day’s work. But, as is often the case, the one thing this fixer can’t fix is his own unraveling life. Newly divorced, saddled with a heavy gambling problem and in deep in debt from a failed business venture with his addict brother, Michael finds himself at the end of his rope.

Whether it’s a sexual indiscretion, a hit and run, substance abuse or corporate misdeeds, Clayton (George Clooney) will do what it takes to "fix it" and make it go away. Copyright © 2007 Warner Brothers Pictures.

The film is really an examination of three characters caught in dire circumstances—the kind of difficult situations that create heroes, villains and martyrs. Tilda Swinton plays Karen Crowder, the chief legal counsel for U-North, a huge chemical firm currently being sued for selling toxic weed killers to small farms, and represented by Clayton’s firm in a class action suit involving several deaths. Her sleek, pristine exterior masks an interior churning with anxiety and self-doubt. In fact, when we first meet her, she is cowering in a restroom before a critical news conference, shaking and drenched in sweat.

Leading U-North’s defense is Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), founding partner in the law firm and Clayton’s friend and mentor. His voice is the first we hear in the film, but it’s the ravings of a madman as he desperately tries to explain to Clayton, in voiceover, why he has switched sides and will represent the plaintiffs against U-North in the lawsuit. Edens (whose name may symbolize the innocence of the Garden of Eden) is manic-depressive and, having fallen off his meds, has experienced an epiphany: he must speak out for the victims of U-North’s greed and reveal their deadly chemicals and deadlier deals.

Edens (Tom Wilkinson) is manic-depressive and, having fallen off his meds, has experienced an epiphany: he must speak out for the victims of U-North’s greed and reveal their deadly chemicals and deadlier deals. Copyright © 2007 Warner Brothers Pictures.

When Clayton is sent to “clean up” after his friend Edens and get him under control, a complex interplay between Clayton, Edens and Crowder begins as each weighs his or her loyalties, ambitions, fears and ever-growing regrets over compromised principles and selling out the truth for profit. Each of them, in essence, must answer to her or his own conscience. Clayton’s struggle may be the hardest, and the easiest to relate to, given that his desperate financial situation and his loyalty to Edens pulls him in opposite directions. But over time, he develops a deeper loyalty to the truth. He realizes that quieting Edens and assisting in the cover-up, makes him complicit in U-North’s lethal crimes.

Accountability is precisely what Michael Clayton is all about. Certainly, the film deals with the issue of personal accountability. Each of us must answer for our actions, especially when our deeds harm others. The film also explores the complex nature of an attorney’s duty to both the client and the truth, and what happens when the two are in conflict. But the broader theme is about organizational accountability. In a land where corporations are given virtually all the legal rights and protections of an individual (some would argue more), this film asks the question whether they should also be held accountable for their actions. Shouldn't corporations be required to make amends for unsafe products, reckless pollution and egregious disregard for human life, when profit is at stake? I think the answer is clear, when Crowder, with smug satisfaction, reports to U-North’s Board, that despite the legal fees and cost to settle the lawsuit, the whole issue was essentially “a wash.” Such accounting reduces people’s lives to numbers on a ledger. Is that really a wash?

Study Questions

Early in the film, Michael Clayton calls himself “a janitor.” What does he mean by this? How does he feel about what he does? Is he proud?
Have you ever needed “a janitor” like Michael to clean up after you made a big mistake? Was it a parent, a teacher or a coworker? How did you feel?
What drives Edens to decide to advocate for U-North’s victims? Was it conscience or mental illness?
How does your conscience speak to you? How can God "speak" through the voice of your conscience?
Do you think God cares about justice and accountability? (See Exod. 23:6, Prov. 29:7, Deut. 27:19.)
How are we all accountable for our actions? (Matt. 12:36, Rom. 3:19)
What does the film have to say about personal accountability? Did Michael Clayton redeem himself in the end? Did Karen Crowder?
What does the film have to say about accountability of organizations, like corporations or law firms?
Do you feel the issue with the poisonous weed killers was “a wash” as Crowder said?
The tagline for this film is “The truth can be adjusted.” Do you believe that? If enough people are paid off, as in the film, can the truth be changed? Is truth absolute?