I really wanted to like this, but I just didn't. I felt like it didn't have much to say. Also l think Maggie Cheung's character (brilliant as her performance was) got off too easy.
Fantastic performance by Cheung
Maggie Cheung won Best Actress Award at Cannes Film Festival 2004 for playing the recovering junkie rocker-cum-mother.
Demonlover and Clean: back-to-back stunning pieces of contemporary film from Mr. Assayas, one of the most underrated French filmmakers working today. Can’t wait to see the similarly-aligned Boarding Gate.
Extremely pretentious, poorly scripted, badly acted, po-faced film. Spent more time trying to go for cool points than developing the story (why exactly did it involve London and Paris, Mazzy Star, Metric, etc?). I think Cheung must be the most unconvincingly radiant junkie in the history of cinema. Then there's the scandalous over saturation of 'An ending (ascent)'.....
Pretty solidly a three star film.
Being a fan of Maggie Cheung and Assayas's Irma Vep, I thought that I would enjoy this film. But, no it left me emotionally detached and un-satisfied. Any film that deals with the death of a lover and estrangement of mother and child should be allowed to show some sort of emotion without being called mawkish or overly sentimental.
Avoids sentimentality and easy payoffs. Nolte and Cheung are standouts, as are the songs.
The best thing about this was the cinematography. Okay performance my Cheung, and Nolte was good, but overall a predictable melodrama. And she can't sing.
A total disappointment for me. Sometimes I watch a film and the only review I can think of afterward was, "A movie where people went places and did things." I think I understand why the dvd was plastered with rave reviews for the actors. Yes they played their roles fine, but I simply couldn't bring myself to care about what was going on, or why it was happening.
Just watched this for the third time. Assayas is one of France's best working directors. A tremendous movie. "Summer Hours" cashes in on all the promise of "Clean," however.
