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  • A wasting life, cleanly told
  • Topics
  • Maggie Cheung
  • Beatrice Dalle
  • Nick Nolte
By Jay Carr

Like its protagonist, Maggie Cheung's rock junkie trying to climb out of life's basement, Olivier Assayas's "Clean" stumbles. But the film and its heroine (pun unintended) stay on their feet, turning a cool, detached atmosphere and a lurching, zigzag structure into assets. The movie is both a vehicle for Cheung and a recognition of the emotional complexity of relationships that, in the case of Cheung and Assayas, resulted in a real-life divorce.

His camera can't help making love to her -- she's chic even at her chaotic character's most unraveled. After her faded rock star husband's death by overdose in an Ontario motel room, she tries to pick up the pieces, and the film is marked by an avoidance of moral labels. Alongside the usual music biz mendacity is an appreciation for the generosity, loyalty and camaraderie that can also be found in the rock world -- personified by Beatrice Dalle's supportive pal. Also impressive in this glossy, continent-hopping saga of distances bridged: Nick Nolte's caring grandfather.

Clean. Written and directed by Olivier Assayas. Starring Maggie Cheung, Nick Nolte, Beatrice Dalle, Martha Henry, James Dennis