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Clean

EMAILPRINTPalm Pictures

Clean reviews
75
7.1 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 28 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 13 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama  |  Foreign

Written by: Olivier Assayas
Malachy Martin
Sarah Perry

Directed by: Olivier Assayas

Release Date:
Theatrical: August 12, 2005
DVD: July 18, 2006

Running Time: 110 minutes, Color

Origin: Canada / France / UK

Summary

RATING: R

Starring Maggie Cheung, Mary Moulds, Nick Nolte, Béatrice Dalle, Jeanne Balibar, Don McKellar, Martha Henry, and James Johnston

A desperate woman with a drug problem seeks to put her life in order to regain contact with her little boy.

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Can a misguided adult start afresh with a new set of values and priorities? This ambitious drama, directed by one of France's most resourceful filmmakers, explores that crucial question in depth and detail.

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100

Premiere Glenn Kenny

A superb effort by a first-rank director, and manna from heaven for Cheung fans.

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100

TV Guide Ken Fox

Cheung gives a revelatory performance.

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100

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Cheung is one of the finest actresses working today, an expressive, lustrous beauty capable of plumbing a boundless range of emotional hues. This is the greatest performance she's given to date.

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91

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Beautifully shot and cut, written with a visceral aversion to cliche, deftly skirting sentimentality, sensationalism and simplicity, it continually surprises, engages and satisfies. For a small, unheralded film, it's a knockout.

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89

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

One of the most emotionally honest movies about drug addiction ever made.

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88

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Emily is played by Maggie Cheung with such intense desperation that she won the best actress award at Cannes 2004.

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88

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Clean, director Olivier Assayas' spellbinding study of a junkie trying to get her life in order so she can reclaim custody of her child, avoids the pitfalls, brilliantly.

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83

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Nolte brings this movie a piece of his heart, and grants us peace.

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80

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

The emotional truthfulness of Clean enters into our bloodstreams with its muted vigor, and we find ourselves getting hooked by this tale of getting unhooked.

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80

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Clean is one of those movies that's slightly off the mark in ways that are hard to put a finger on, but it is shot so soulfully and features such beautiful performances that it's easy to forgive the occasional false note.

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80

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Albrecht brings out a side of Mr. Nolte rarely seen on the screen, and he gives a deep and touching portrayal of a haggard, beleaguered older man.

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75

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Not your average divorce gift: Clean's writer-director Olivier Assayas created the role of recovering rock-world druggie Emily Wang for his ex-wife, art-house/action-pic royalty Maggie Cheung (In the Mood for Love).

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75

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Cheung and Nick Nolte seem unlikely co-stars, but co-star they do in Clean, giving gritty performances under the direction of Frenchman Olivier Assayas.

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75

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

When these two powerhouse performers come together, a rather predictable tale ignites with surprising force.

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75

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The film gets its distinction from the performances by Cheung and Nolte, whose scenes together are suffused with loss and unexpected mutual compassion.

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75

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Clean has the same mixture of human tenderness and borderline-silly Eurochic that marks Wenders films like "Until the End of the World."

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75

Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves

Clean is above all a movie about making peace with uncertainty and doubt and living with the aftershocks of the choices we make. Not the easiest task, but it may be what redeems us in the end.

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75

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

The rough, exposed emotional candor of Cheung's singing voice carries into her performance.

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70

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

It's the moral journey of Nolte's character that is the real story in Clean, but Assayas instead focuses on the manipulative habits of an addict, resulting in a mannered study of narcissism and self-pity.

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70

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Hitting the ground in his ultra-naturalistic mode, Assayas only uncages his star's formidable smile once or twice and never demands our empathy, making Clean a uniquely pungent portrait of dependent personalities and the strain they put on the social weave.

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63

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

It's not so much a movie in three acts as three movies stuffed into a single casing, and often showing the strain.

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60

The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett

Complex but cold tale.

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60

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Maggie Cheung, who was in Assayas's Irma Vep, plays Emily with a semi-detached feeling--observing the role as much as portraying it. The chief pleasure in the picture is Nick Nolte's performance as the boy's paternal grandfather.

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50

San Francisco Chronicle John McMurtrie

An unflinching look at the ravages of substance abuse, and it's also a sobering redemptive tale.

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50

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Cheung can't make the woman very interesting in her own right--the most compelling performance here is Nolte's.

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40

Variety David Rooney

Dramatically pallid and unconvincing. Despite being written for her, the director's "Irma Vep" muse Maggie Cheung seems oddly miscast here and is ill-served by an emotionally underpowered screenplay that rarely gets beneath the surface of the character's problems.

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40

Empire Alan Morrison

Bit of a mediocre drama from writer-director Assayas despite some good turns, not least from Nick Nolte and Beatrice Dalle.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.1 (out of 10) based on 13 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Chad S. gave it a9:
"Clean" might be a film in code about the most infamous of all rock-and-roll widows, but I hope not, since Allison Anders' "Sugar Town" had already done a fine job of eviscerating(again, in code) this woman, who nevertheless, love her or hate her, arguably served the important and underrated function of muse for the troubled drug-addled musician. Emily Wang(Maggie Cheung) is also universally hated by the music industry for fueling her husband's appetite for poison, but like her real-life counterpart, she played a part in her husband's artistic triumphs by incident; by just simply being there(without Love in Kurt Cobain's life, maybe he might've simply been a Black Francis-wanna-be). The fact that Emily is Chinese makes her unpopularity complicated since the hatred she's encumbered with might be a two-fold attack(the public's distaste for Emily's heroin addiction could be a cover-up for the real issue at hand; she's Asian), which the filmmaker smartly leaves to our imagination; the only mention about Emily's ethnicity comes from her uncle. "Clean" elects to keep Emily's withdrawal from heroin largely off-screen(leave the writhing in agony to Darin Aronofsky); the film is more concerned with her redemption. A filmmaker with a heavy hand would demonstrate a recovering addict's unfitness to be a parent by staging a relapse. What this director does is brilliant; he casts doubt about Emily's ability to exercise sound parental judgment by the mode of transportation she supplies for her son. "Clean", led by Cheung's glamorous, yet somehow gritty performance, has us rooting for her every step of the way to a recovering junkie's nirvana.

Marc K. gave it a9:
Too bad this wasn't released in America until 2006, and too bad when it was released, it came and went. This is one of the best 2006 releases in America. Maggie Cheung clearly deserved the Best Actress award at Cannes for this performance. While she's the reason to see this movie, the plot is also well-done, and is a more positive piece than most of the films in this genre.

Maura C. gave it a6:
Interesting and meditative movie. Visually very beautiful, but could have used a little more depth when it came to the characters. The story was overall fairly touching, but sometimes seemed a bit meandering and pointless. Okay movie that could have used some more work to make it great.

Bert H. gave it a9:
Maggie Cheung and Nick Nolte were both brilliant. An uplifting story of redemption and of just not giving up.

Jeremy G. gave it a1:
A real snoozer. Most of director Assayas' films suffer from languorous pacing and this is no exception. Poorly written and directed, the film features a bland performance by all the leads, except for Nick Nolte and Beatrice Dalle, who are the only two who make an impression. Full of cliches about drug-addicted musicians and the people who love and loathe them. The only redeeming aspects of this are the performances of Nolte and Dalle, and a decent soundtrack, which kept us from falling asleep.

Maurice F. gave it a6:
Can a misguided adult start afresh with a new set of values and priorities? This ambitious drama, directed by one of France's most resourceful filmmakers, explores that crucial question in depth and detail. And not your average divorce gift: Clean's writer-director Olivier Assayas created the role of recovering rock-world druggie Emily Wang for his ex-wife, art-house/action-pic royalty Maggie Cheung (In the Mood for Love). But it's not so much a movie in three acts as three movies stuffed into a single casing, and often showing the strain. It a complex but cold tale.

Read more user comments >

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