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Maggie Cheung, Nick Nolte, Beatrice Dalle, Jeanne Balibar, Don McKellar ... see more see more... , Martha Henry , James Johnston , James Dennis , Laetitia Spigarelli , Tricky , Liz Densmore , David Roback , Emily Haines , Remi Martin , Ian Brown , Laura Smet

A woman throws herself into a last-ditch struggle to conquer her demons in this gritty drama from director Olivier Assayas. Lee Hauser (James Johnston) is a faded rock star who lives with his wife, Em... read more read more...ily Wang (Maggie Cheung), the former host of a European music video show, in a small town in Western Canada. Both Lee and Emily have been battling drug addiction for years, and when Lee finally dies of an OD, Emily finds herself charged with possession of heroin and ends up spending six months in jail. Lee and Emily's son, Jay (James Dennis), has been living with his paternal grandparents, Albrecht (Nick Nolte) and Rosemary (Martha Henry), and while Emily is eager to see her son after getting out of jail, Albrecht persuades her that she needs to get herself clean before she can reconnect with Jay. Determined to get off methadone, Emily relocates to France, where she scares up a job as a waitress and moves in with her old friend Elena (Béatrice Dalle). Emily's attempts to start a new career and stay off drugs prove to be an uphill battle, and she doesn't appear to be winning her fight when she learns that Albrecht and Jay will be accompanying Rosemary to London for medical treatment when Rosemary contracts a serious illness -- and that Albrecht is considering making a side trip to Paris. Clean was screened in competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Flixster Users

53% liked it

14,382 ratings

Critics

72% liked it

64 critics

R, 1 hr. 51 min.

Directed by: Olivier Assayas

Release Date: March 18, 2005

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DVD Release Date: July 18, 2006

Stats: 353 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (353)

  • 5oclockcoffee
    November 5, 2009
    5oclockcoffee
    Impossible not to think about Kurt and Courtney, even if inspite of choosing to bring up a "glamourous" drug and rock n´roll world (or the typical approach of junkies trying to clean up), the movie focus on a woman trying to change her life and to get her son back.

    Another in... read moreteresting point is that it´s not really a sweet movie about mother and son knowing each other and getting close. Emily is not likeable and she´s not even sure if she wants to settle down. However, it´s more to a "typical" drama movie than any other Olivier Assayas´s movies (I´ve seen) where "nothing really happens".


  • ceWEBrity
    March 8, 2007
    ceWEBrity
    Clean is all about the slow burn. It keeps itself thankfully distanced from the histrionics and melodrama of a typical drug movie, instead immersing itself in the ephemeral dream pace that most indie movies have. For what it's worth, not much actually seems to happen, and the dev... read moreelopment is far too subtle for most of the idiots on Flixster to comprehend. You can't blame people for finding the movie slow, but the path to recovering from addiction is a slow one.

    Maggie Cheung completely owned this role. She gives one of the most powerful, troubled, convictive performances I've seen in a very long time. Nick Nolte is great, as well, but this is Cheung's movie.

    Don't bother picking this one up if you consider yourself even slightly short of attention.
  • gator681
    May 14, 2006
    gator681
    [font=Century Gothic]In "Clean", Emily(Maggie Cheung) and Lee(James Johnston) are a rock and roll couple on the skids in Hamilton, Ontario.(Their son, Jay(James Dennis), is being watched by his grandparents in Vancouver.) Following a drug buy and an argument, Emily drives off an... read mored spends the night in her car near the lake. By the time she returns to the motel, the police have discovered Lee dead from an overdose. To make matters even worse, the police find heroin on her which leads to a six month jail sentence for possession. When she gets out of jail and is now on methadone to wean her off the heroin, she meets up with Lee's father, Albrecht(Nick Nolte), who tells her that it is a good idea that she not see her son for a while. Emily says she is going to Paris where she has family...[/font]
    [font=Century Gothic][/font]
    [font=Century Gothic]"Clean" is ostensibly about a person trying to put her life back together after hitting rock bottom, but it meanders and lingers on useless trivia too much to have any success. And we learn nothing of the time Lee and Emily spent together. But it does get better by the end and is very well photographed. Nick Nolte gives one of his best performances but Maggie Cheung can do very little with a badly underwritten character. [/font]
  • jeffboam
    March 7, 2011
    jeffboam
    Like a painting on the wall of the Met, films should continue to invite inspection long after the voyeur has left the theater--like true art should. Slow and bleak but still poignant, Clean kinda sort does this, leaving room for interpretation from filmgoers...if the audience is ... read morepatient
    enough to take the whole journey with the characters.

    Wrestling with a failing singing career, drug addiction, and being an absentee mother to her young son, Emily Wang (Cheung) suddenly finds her life turned upside down and inside out by her husband's death in the R-rated Clean.

    Despite weaving a slow-going tale, director Olivier Assayes still renders an exceptional and complicated tale of redemption simply by posing the following question: "Can people change?" Backed with luminous performances, especially that of an extra grizzly Nick Nolte as her long-suffering father-in-law, Assayes wholly succeeds not by fully answering the question, but by allowing filmgoers to identify with this reality.

    Bottom line: Good habit.
  • falcons84
    April 23, 2006
    falcons84
    Maggie Cheung is dazzling as always. This would get 2 stars if not for her stellar performance.
  • hossein13
    September 28, 2010
    hossein13
    Sep 2010 - A very simple story that fades appropriately when we want to see the personality of the main character and her efforts to get back to a normal life with her kid. The actin of Maggie Cheung is incredible and the scenes with the child are so well delivered.
  • nstanosheck
    May 25, 2008
    nstanosheck
    It was a well made film and a good enough story, but not anything that I would ever care to see again. Maybe her story just was not inspiring enough after all of those in my generation who became clean as part of growing up and having a child.
  • adecker31
    February 25, 2007
    adecker31
    One of the two best films I saw in 2006 - it was made in 2004 but it took awhile to find a distributer...

    Maggie Cheung is out of this fucking world.

    Really good stuff.

    This should have found a wider audience.
  • stabino
    January 21, 2007
    stabino
    It's good to have watched it, but I don't think I'll see it again. A story about redemption, and changing a woman's life for her long separated son.
  • Claraity
    October 19, 2006
    Claraity
    Maggie Cheung is great! She speaks french, cantonese, and english and dellivers such a great performance.

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Critic Reviews

Jonathan Rosenbaum
March 2, 2008
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

A disappointment. Full Review

Stephanie Zacharek
October 7, 2006
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com

Maggie Cheung gives an astonishingly complex performance as a junkie rock star trying to clean up her act. Full Review

Steven Rea
June 30, 2006
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

It helps -- immensely -- that Cheung is pitch-perfect. Her performance is heartbreaking.

Jessica Reaves
June 29, 2006
Jessica Reaves, Chicago Tribune

It's a joy to watch the characters in this grown-up drama interact, their exchanges laced with anger and doubt, sadness and regret. Full Review

Roger Ebert
June 23, 2006
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Emily is played by Maggie Cheung with such intense desperation that she won the best actress award at Cannes 2004. Only a few actresses in the world could have handled this role from a technical point... Full Review

Richard Roeper
June 12, 2006
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper

It's a complex, very successful portrayal of an addictive, selfish, volatile soul who knows she might be running out of chances at a decent life. Full Review

Bruce Westbrook
June 9, 2006
Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle

Assayas tells her tale sympathetically, but this sad saga lacks substance. He sells the wretch but not the redemption. Full Review

Ty Burr
June 9, 2006
Ty Burr, Boston Globe

It's a globe-trotting drama with more than a touch of Wim Wenders whim to it. Full Review

Ann Hornaday
June 8, 2006
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

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-p... Full Review

John McMurtrie
May 26, 2006
John McMurtrie, San Francisco Chronicle

Despite Cheung's efforts (she won the best actress award at Cannes in 2004) and a strong and subtle supporting performance by Nick Nolte, the story could have used a good dose of adrenaline to keep it... Full Review

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