Clean
Written by Olivier Assayas, Malachy Martin, Sarah Perry
Palm
2006
Rating:


Where "Down to the Bone" deals with the grueling process of drug recovery and "Little Fish" focuses on a former addict on the verge of slipping, Olivier Assayas' "Clean" exists somewhere in between, following an imperfect woman as she struggles to end her heroin habit. Coming on the heels of the acclaimed aforementioned films and mining familiar territory, Assayas nonetheless fashions a compelling and intimate character study of a person's ability to change.

"Clean" begins with bottomed out rock star Lee (James Johnston) and his shrewish wife Emily (Maggie Cheung) arriving in Hamilton, Canada, to play a dive bar. Emily eviscerates Lee's manager Vernon (Don McKellar) for not finding bigger venues and for his inability to land Lee a major record deal. Meanwhile Metric, the band performing onstage, sings "Dead Disco" and comments backstage on how Emily has been a curse on Lee's career.

Emily immediately proves them right. She quickly locates a local drug dealer and scores heroin for herself and Lee. Lee voices his concerns about the unlikelihood of him being able to spark his career now that he's in his 40s, but Emily is more concerned about what British rock magazine Q said about her in its pages. Lee yells at Emily for her self-centeredness. She responds by taking her drugs and shooting up in her car while watching the lights from a refinery.

The next morning, Emily returns to the hotel to discover that Lee has died from an overdose. Emily is arrested for possession and forced to serve six months in jail while receiving methadone treatment. Meanwhile, Lee's death has made him a big star and Emily's son with Lee, Jay (James Dennis), is left with his grandparents Albrecht (Nick Nolte in an understated triumph of a performance that's his best work since 1997's "Affliction") and Rosemary (Martha Henry).

Once released, Emily begins the difficult process of change and redemption. It's a path of great resistance for Emily, rendered with the utmost fragility by Cheung. A careless harridan junkie when she had Lee to hang onto, Emily transforms into a woman abandoned by her friends and who's trying to find a new way in the world that involves her own music and her newly discovered love of her son. Emily stumbles along the way, but Cheung's complex portrayal and Assayas — who's a long way from the down-the-rabbit-hole acid trip of 2003's "demonlover" — are working on too fine a calibration to give into histrionics.

Emily is helped along the way by, of all people, Albrecht. Albrecht refuses to hold Emily responsible for Lee's death (unlike his wife), and he offers Emily that most elusive of human gifts: forgiveness. Assayas' film is about Emily's journey toward earning that gift, a task that proves to be as hard as getting clean.

Posted Friday, June 16, 2006

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/film/clean