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June 14, 2006
Clean
I'm not going to have time to write a full review of Olivier Assayas' Clean, which focuses on Emily Wang (Maggie Cheung), a heroin-addicted rock musician whose husband, Lee Hauser (James Johnston), also a rock musican, dies of a drug overdose in a Candaian industrial town (Hamilton, Ontario, if I remember correctly). Sentenced to jail for possession, Emily loses custody of their son to Lee's parents (played by Nick Nolte and Martha Henry). Cheung, who won the best actress award for this performance at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, is impressive as a recovering junkie struggling to regain control over her life, but as Filmbrain notes--in an insightful review of the film--Cheung is far too pretty to be fully convincing as an addict. But the film is well worth watching for Cheung's performance and for her interaction with Nolte. Clean manages to avoid some of the cliches of the drug recovery picture (see the recent New York Times review on this topic), but for whatever reason, I didn't find the film that memorable (although this may be attributed to my being somewhat distracted right now by The Big Move that continues to occupy much of my energy).
Posted by chuck at June 14, 2006 11:36 AM
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