Tony Kaye's Detachment: A Miserable Education
22.05.12
Could conceivably happen at a high school anywhere in America on any given day: A boy beats a helpless animal to death while classmates look on, a girl writes an essay about wanting to die, various students challenge teachers in ways that would make 99 percent of the population turn tail and run for the door. The performances — from that of star Adrien Brody to supporting work delivered in small poisonous doses by James Caan, Marcia Gay Harden and Blythe Danner — are almost uniformly sharp and forceful.
Yet I didn’t believe a word of the film and found myself feeling nothing but (I’m sure this wasn’t Kaye’s point) detachment. The movie seems so excited about rubbing the audience’s face in misery as to feel perverted. It comes at you like an exhibitionist with his pants around his ankles, desperate to be seen and to sully.
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Brody plays perennial substitute teacher Henry, who has a gift for calming enraged
Source: TIME