French director Olivier Assayas (IRMA VEP, DEMONLOVER, L’EAU FROIDE) returns with a strong narrative feature about a mother, Emily (Maggie Cheung) and grandfather (Nick Nolte) playing an emotional game of custody for a boy (James Dennis). Emily is blamed for her rock star partner Lee’s (James Johnston) drug related death in Hamilton, Canada. While serving a sentence for heroin possession, Jay is looked after by his grandparents, Albrecht and Rosemary Hauser (Nolte and Martha Henry) in Vancouver, the other side of Canada. CLEAN tells the story of how Emily searches and earns a better life, straightens out with a job in Paris before attempting to see her boy again. 

CLEAN offers a worthy French, English and Canadian co-production with English, Cantonese (Cheung is a Hong Kong superstar before now living in Paris with husband Assayas) and French spoken.  Assayas’ camera also takes the viewer from Hamilton to Paris to London.  London comes across as the best looking city while Hamilton, shown for all its run-down basement clubs, hospital wards, steel factories and suburban buildings gives the film its harder, edgy look.  Hamilton is also a steel town that has seen its glory years – reflecting the past success rock star Lee’s music.  This look also compliments the drive and the bitterness of the characters quite well. 

CLEAN is split into 3 parts, the first dealing with Emily’s problems from drug abuse to getting a job at the Printemps departmental store in Paris. The second segment drags a little as Assayas ties the grandparents’ situation to Emily’s attempt at going drug-free. Performances by French actresses Beatrice Dalle and Jeanne Balibar help. The third and last portion is the most gut wrenching when Emily gives her all to retrieve the only thing that matters in the world – the custody of her son.

When human beings have no other options – as Emily in seeing her son again – she has to change. CLEAN is a film about change. But, Assayas wisely concentrates more on the desperation of the mother and the relationship between her and the reluctant son than anything else.

Assayas’ film works on various levels. For one, he has written a very smart script that recognizes both the failings and strength of human beings. He surprises us with character contradictions. Outward behavior does not necessarily reflect inner beliefs. The merciless calm Martha Henry can compared to the sympathetic but tenser Nick Nolte. Assayas throws in his bit of dry humor as well. When a promoter (Don McKellar last seen in the excellent Canadian CHILDSTAR that flopped at the box-office) visits Emily in prison, he tells her (while wearing a happy face T-shirt) that he will not do anything else for her, clearly showing his dislike for her. 

CLEAN should probably be avoided by people that do not understand junkies – why they have no determination or ambition or why would they just not stop the usage altogether. The film’s best scene has Emily explaining all these answers about drugs (at the zoo) to her young son. Riveting! But what works best is Maggie Cheung’s performance. Whether dealing with the grandfather or coming to terms with Jay for the first time, Cheung as an actress proves that she deserves the Cannes Best Actress Award that she won last year. One could ask why the role be performed by a Chinese actressother than the fact that Maggie is the director’s wife. But the character could very well be a westerner or one of any other nationality.  Assayas does bring in a segment where Emily works in her family’s Chinese restaurant in Paris.  The only slight complaint is Assayas’ insistence of having Cheung sing her hit song at the end of the film.  But in an interview with Maggie Cheung, she defends the Emily character: “She will not succeed as a singer; she does not sing well enough.  But she shall become less selfish and she will succeed as a person!” On another note, the music by Metric (at the start) and other bands like Tricky is tolerable at best.  Still, CLEAN is Assayas’ best dramatic film to date.

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Review by: Gilbert Seah