Detachment Movie Review

Posted by Charmaine Blake on Mar 19th, 2012 in Drama | 0 comments

Detachment Movie Review

Detachment, starring Adrien Brody is a story of a trouble substitute teacher who has a hard time creating bonds with his co-teachers and students. In this movie, Adrien Brody finds his fear of attachment coming into his existence and all that’s left is for him to face it. Detachment was shown in theaters last March 16th 2012. Here’s a quick movie review from Stephen Holden:

Detachment: A Story About A Teacher Who Wants To Make A Difference

“Detachment, the latest provocation from Tony Kaye, the director of the neo-Nazi drama “American History X” and the graphic abortion documentary “Lake of Fire,” belongs to a subset of shockers that know exactly which nerves to prick to produce intense reactions. Like-minded movies determined to blow the lid off your complacency include Larry Clark’s “Kids” and Darren Aronofsky’s “Requiem for a Dream.” But how much can you trust films that blend high-minded outrage with a tabloid-savvy sensationalism?

To camouflage its trashier impulses, “Detachment” buttresses its jeremiad about the failing public-education system with quotations from “The Stranger” by Albert Camus and a reading from “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe. The shriller its didacticism, the more unhinged it becomes. But even at its most ludicrous — when it is shouting into your ear — its sheer audacity grabs your attention.

The particular hell explored in “Detachment” is a public high school (every high school, the movie implies) somewhere in the New York metropolitan area, as seen through the sorrowful eyes of Henry Barthes (Adrien Brody), a dedicated substitute teacher. Henry, who lives a loner’s existence, copes with the stress of work by maintaining an attitude of compassionate detachment. In one of his best performances since “The Pianist,” Mr. Brody plays him as a quietly suffering saint whose anguished gaze tilts toward heaven.

Henry regularly visits a nursing home where his ailing grandfather (Louis Zorich) suffers from worsening dementia but is still rational enough to be racked with guilt for past sins involving Henry’s alcoholic mother (seen in lurid flashbacks), who committed suicide.

Ever the good Samaritan, Henry impulsively offers shelter to Erica (Sami Gayle), a 15-year-old runaway prostitute who follows him home. Under Henry’s chaste ministrations, Erika metamorphoses virtually overnight from a savage, foul-mouthed viper covered with sores and bruises into a radiant surrogate daughter.

Mr. Brody heads a strong cast that includes Marcia Gay Harden as the besieged principal who is fired because the school’s low test scores are blamed for the neighborhood’s property values; Christina Hendricks as a fellow teacher who initiates a tentative romance with Henry; James Caan, playing a cynical, pill-popping faculty clown; and Lucy Liu as Dr. Doris Parker, a guidance counselor who cracks under the stress.

In the most implausible scene, Dr. Parker goes ballistic when a student complains that she doesn’t like school and wants to be a model. Screaming hysterically that the girl is a shallow, disgusting creature, Dr. Parker brutally outlines the girl’s hopeless future.”

The rest of the article can be read at New York Times

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Charmaine Blake loves movies, musical theater listening to music and taking pictures of anything that she finds interesting. She is a voracious reader and writer, and enjoys her time writing for New Movie Launches. Charmaine loves spending time with her pets and currently has a Siberian Husky, a toy poodle and a cat.