Although it seems like Nick Nolte has spent his entire career playing miserable characters - save "Hotel Rwanda" - then "Clean" justifies most of his roles. Maggie Cheung plays Emily Wang, a woman in Hamilton, Ontario, with a past of drug addiction and other life-ruining things. Following a raid, her son gets taken away from her and sent to live with his grandfather Albrecht (Nolte) in Vancouver, B.C. So, Maggie decides to restart her life in Paris. While visiting London, Albrecht takes the grandson to Paris to visit her, and then has to face a moral dilemma about whether or not keeping the boy from his mother is a good idea.
This is certainly a scathing look at drug usage. Many of the camera angles make you feel like you're sinking into her world of desperation, and you just might feel like you've been kicked in the gut. As always, Nolte does a really good job as a person living a seemingly pathetic life. So I recommend it, but not for the fainthearted.
This is certainly a scathing look at drug usage. Many of the camera angles make you feel like you're sinking into her world of desperation, and you just might feel like you've been kicked in the gut. As always, Nolte does a really good job as a person living a seemingly pathetic life. So I recommend it, but not for the fainthearted.