''Detachment'' is a 2011 American
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...
directed by
Tony Kaye and distributed by Tribeca Film. It was written by Carl Lund. Its story follows Henry Barthes, a high-school substitute teacher who becomes a role model to his students and others. It stars
Adrien Brody
Adrien Nicholas Brody (born April 14, 1973) is an American actor. He received widespread recognition and acclaim after starring as Władysław Szpilman in Roman Polanski's '' The Pianist'' (2002), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Acto ...
,
Marcia Gay Harden
Marcia Gay Harden (born August 14, 1959) is an American actress. She is the recipient of accolades including an Academy Award and a Tony Award, in addition to nominations for a Critics' Choice Movie Award and three Primetime Emmy Awards.
Born ...
,
Christina Hendricks
Christina Rene Hendricks (born May 3, 1975) is an American actress and former model. With an extensive career on screen and stage, she has received various accolades, including six Primetime Emmy Award nominations, two Screen Actors Guild Awar ...
,
William Petersen
William Louis Petersen (born February 21, 1953) is an American actor and producer. He is best known for his role as Gil Grissom in the CBS drama series ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'' (2000–2015), for which he won a Screen Actors Guild Aw ...
,
Bryan Cranston
Bryan Lee Cranston (born March 7, 1956) is an American actor and director who is best known for portraying Walter White in the AMC crime drama series ''Breaking Bad'' (2008–2013) and Hal in the Fox sitcom ''Malcolm in the Middle'' (2000–20 ...
,
Tim Blake Nelson
Timothy Blake Nelson (born May 11, 1964) is an American actor and playwright.
Described as a "modern character actor", his roles include Delmar O'Donnell in '' O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' (2000), Gideon in '' Minority Report'' (2002), Dr. Pend ...
,
Betty Kaye,
Sami Gayle
Sami Gayle is an American actress. She co-stars as Nicky Reagan in the CBS series '' Blue Bloods''.
Early life
Gayle was born and raised in Weston, Florida.[Lucy Liu
Lucy Alexis Liu is an American actress. Her accolades include winning a Critics' Choice Television Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Seoul International Drama Award, in addition to nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award.
Liu has sta ...]
,
Blythe Danner, and
James Caan
James Edmund Caan ( ; March 26, 1940 – July 6, 2022) was an American actor. He came to prominence playing Sonny Corleone in ''The Godfather'' (1972) – a performance which earned him Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Suppo ...
.
The film was produced by Greg Shapiro, Carl Lund, Bingo Gubelmann,
Austin Stark, Benji Kohn, and Chris Papavasiliou and was released on March 16, 2012. It grossed $10,739 during its opening weekend and $1.68 million worldwide.
It received mixed reviews and has a approval rating based on reviews on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
.
Synopsis
''Detachment'' is a chronicle of one month in the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students through the eyes of a substitute teacher named Henry Barthes (
Adrien Brody
Adrien Nicholas Brody (born April 14, 1973) is an American actor. He received widespread recognition and acclaim after starring as Władysław Szpilman in Roman Polanski's '' The Pianist'' (2002), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Acto ...
). Barthes' method of imparting vital knowledge to his temporary students is interrupted by the arrival of three women in his life—a damaged and naive sex worker, Erica (
Sami Gayle
Sami Gayle is an American actress. She co-stars as Nicky Reagan in the CBS series '' Blue Bloods''.
Early life
Gayle was born and raised in Weston, Florida.[Christina Hendricks
Christina Rene Hendricks (born May 3, 1975) is an American actress and former model. With an extensive career on screen and stage, she has received various accolades, including six Primetime Emmy Award nominations, two Screen Actors Guild Awar ...]
), and a troubled teen named Meredith (Betty Kaye). These women all have profound effects on Barthes' life, forcing him to both re-discover aspects of his own personality, and to come to terms with both the tragic suicide of his mother and the impending death of his grandfather (
Louis Zorich
Louis Zorich (February 12, 1924 – January 30, 2018) was an American actor. He played sporting good salesman Burt Buchman, Paul Buchman's father, on the NBC series ''Mad About You'' from 1993 to 1999.
Early years
Zorich was born in Chicago, I ...
). The film is punctuated with flashbacks of scenes of Barthes' young childhood and his mother's suicide.
Sub-plots include the struggles of Dr. Parker (
Lucy Liu
Lucy Alexis Liu is an American actress. Her accolades include winning a Critics' Choice Television Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Seoul International Drama Award, in addition to nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award.
Liu has sta ...
) within her role as the school counselor and the painful torment of Principal Dearden (
Marcia Gay Harden
Marcia Gay Harden (born August 14, 1959) is an American actress. She is the recipient of accolades including an Academy Award and a Tony Award, in addition to nominations for a Critics' Choice Movie Award and three Primetime Emmy Awards.
Born ...
), who faces her dismissal as head of this deeply flawed school.
Plot
Substitute teacher Henry Barthes is called in for a one-month assignment, teaching English classes at a high school with many students performing at a low grade level. On his first day, he assesses his students' writing skills with an essay regarding how they believe they will be remembered after they die. During this class, he observes many acts of hostility and antagonism, including a student yelling at him and threatening him physically, as well as two students verbally harassing pupil Meredith, whom he becomes acquainted with after class. Later that day, he witnesses more aggression, when the mother of a student who has been expelled for harassing teacher Sarah Madison confronts her.
After school, Henry is called in to the care facility to see his grandfather who is suffering from dementia, as he has locked himself in the bathroom and won't come out. On his way out, after his visit, Henry becomes frustrated with a staff member, as he believes his grandfather isn't being taken care of properly.
On the bus ride home, Henry sees young sex worker, Erica, get hit by a man who refuses to pay her. Erica attempts to coerce Henry to have sex with her, which he refuses.
The next day, Henry reads aloud to the class through the essays from earlier. After reading an anonymous essay (which is assumed to be Meredith's), he becomes aware of her struggles with suicidal ideation.
After visiting his grandfather, Henry again runs into Erica, who he invites up to his apartment. There, he feeds her, cleans the cuts and scrapes on her legs, and allows her to stay for the night. Over the next few nights, she is allowed to stay, though he informs her that she won't be able to stay forever.
At school, the staff have a memorial service for a teacher who has passed away, though none of them liked him, nor do they know how he died.
Later, a speaker gives a talk to the faculty, discussing how the low test scores are bringing down real-estate prices, outraging the exhausted teachers. It is revealed there that Principal Carol Dearden is being fired soon. After the talk, Sarah asks Henry back to her house for dinner. When Henry returns home late, Erica is still awake, waiting for him. She is upset that he went out without telling her, to which he informs her that she can't expect him to tell her such things. However, Henry believes that Erica is showing responsibility, since she went grocery shopping and prepared dinner, which he is pleased with.
Back at school, the counsellor Dr. Parker talks to a student, Missy, about her low grades and lack of ambition, to which she seems to lack any care about. Dr. Parker tries to tell Missy about the importance of education later in life, but she loses her composure as she expresses her frustrations over her own life, which has supposedly not gone how she wished.
Henry is later called into the care facility, where Erica has been waiting for him, because his grandfather has become ill, and it is believed he will die soon. Henry's grandfather is scared, as he believes he is responsible for Henry's distress in life (which was caused by his mother's suicide), and he feels that he cannot leave Henry. Henry tells his grandfather that he's done nothing wrong and he can let himself go if he wants to. After their visit, Henry and Erica go to the park, where Erica asks about Henry's mother. He details her suicide (the result of an overdose). He also mentions there was an incident between his grandfather and his mother, but that he never felt unsafe around either of them.
The next day at school, Meredith shows Henry an artwork that she made for him. After she mentions that Henry seems like he needs someone to talk to, Henry becomes concerned, as he believes she is referring to herself. When Meredith opens up about her struggles and becomes visibly upset, Henry tries to comfort her. She hugs him, now very upset, asking Henry to console her. Sarah walks in on them, (causing Meredith to run away) and becomes concerned that Henry was acting inappropriately towards Meredith. Henry defends himself, insisting he was just comforting her, but he begins to panic, suddenly confronted with memories of his mother and grandfather. He eventually packs his bag and runs away, overcome with emotion.
Later that day, Henry is informed that his grandfather has died. Feeling on-edge after all that's happened, Henry informs Erica he can no longer take care of her, and has social services take her to a foster home. She becomes very upset, begging him to let her stay, but he reluctantly maintains his stance.
The next day at school, Meredith has set up a cupcake stall. Henry goes to talk to her about the day before, still trying to console her, but she seems reluctant to talk to him. She then eats one of her cupcakes, which she laced with poison, and commits suicide.
Later, he decides to go visit Erica in the foster care facility. She euphorically embraces him.
On his last day of teaching, Henry reads to the class ''
The Fall of the House of Usher
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839 in ''Burton's Gentleman's Magazine'', then included in the collection ''Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque'' in 1840. The short story ...
'' by
Edgar Allen Poe.
Cast
Production
Filming took place in
Mineola Middle School and
Mineola High School on
Long Island, New York.
In March 2012, cast member Bryan Cranston was asked about ''Detachment'' during an interview for
Collider
A collider is a type of particle accelerator which brings two opposing particle beams together such that the particles collide. Colliders may either be ring accelerators or linear accelerators.
Colliders are used as a research tool in particl ...
. The reporter told Cranston that he loved the movie and then started to ask his question. "Wait," Cranston said, "did you like 'Detachment'?" The reporter said again that he loved it, and Cranston seemed surprised. "I haven't seen it," he told the assembled press. "I'm surprised to hear that actually." When asked to clarify, he continued, "Because I felt that Carl Lund, the writer of 'Detachment,' wrote a really beautiful, haunting script. And I didn't feel that it was honored."
Shocked by Cranston's frankness, the reporters pushed him for more on that disagreement. "I was upset with that. I really was. And so I didn't see the movie." He sighed, resigned, and continued, after searching for the right way to phrase himself, "Tony Kaye is a very complicated… interesting fellow." He smiled as he chose his words carefully. "I don't believe that I'll be working with him again. I didn't not get along with him on a personal level. But I just honor the writing. I really think that writing is the most important element there is. It is the springboard. It is where everything starts. And if you don't honor that -- which I didn't feel it was -- then where are you?" He leaned in as if telling everyone a secret. "And I'm not the only actor on that film to feel that way."
In the same month, director Tony Kaye touched upon the issue in a separate interview. "My agent sent me this fantastic piece of writing by a guy called Carl Lund. A writer. One of the things that I felt was how real it was. And writing is really about research and speech and I thought this guy’s really done his homework. In fact it turned out that he had been a teacher. So then it all became very clear. And then when it really began, if you like, really really began was when Adrien Brody sort of popped up and said I’ll do this. A couple of weeks before we were supposed to start to shoot. And then I decided myself at that point I’m gonna hang the whole thing on you
rody And try to build out your character of Henry much more and make it all everything about you. Just you.” The interviewer then asks Kaye if he rebuilt the script at that point. Kaye responds, “Well I reinterpreted it, yeah. When Carl first wrote it, I believe it was a very vignette ensemble thing." ”Carl's script was very impressionistic, and
part of what I do, sometimes,
svery impressionistic storytelling. I used that to its full, here, to try and make sense of it all.... There's more
ootageof Marcia Gay Harden and Bryan Cranston
hich
Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...
I've got in the hard drives, and I'm hoping to
etit out, in maybe a longer cut."''
Release
''Detachment'' premiered on April 25, 2011, at the
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...
.
[Gordon, Cox (April 4, 2011)]
"'Detachment', Rocker Doc Join Tribeca"
Variety. Pretty Pictures acquired rights to distribute the film in France. In September 2011, Tribeca Film acquired U.S. distribution rights with Celluloid Dreams repping worldwide sales rights. Territories sold include Benelux (Wild Bunch), Italy (UBU), Middle East (Shooting Stars), Russia (CP Digital), Latin America (California), India (Pictureworks), Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam (PT Parkit) and Taiwan (Cineplex).
On September 9, 2011, ''Detachment'' screened in competition at the 37th
Deauville American Film Festival
The Deauville American Film Festival (french: Festival du cinéma américain de Deauville, link=no) is a yearly film festival devoted to American cinema, which has taken place since 1975 in Deauville, France.
It was established by Lionel Cho ...
in France. It won both the Revelations Prize and the International Critics' Award. On September 18, ''Detachment'' was announced as the Closing Night Film at the
Woodstock Film Festival
The Woodstock Film Festival is an American film festival that was launched in 2000 by filmmakers Meira Blaustein and Laurent Rejto with the goal to bring high quality independent film to the Hudson Valley region. The festival takes place each fa ...
, where Kaye was the recipient of the Honorary Maverick Award.
On October 12, 2011, ''Detachment'' screened in competition at the Valenciennes International Festival of Action and Adventure Films in France, where it won the Grand Prize and the Audience Award. Later, on October 26, the film screened in competition at the 24th
Tokyo International Film Festival
The is a film festival established in 1985. The event was held biennially from 1985 to 1991 and annually thereafter. Along with the Shanghai International Film Festival, it is one of Asia's competitive film festivals, and is considered to be the ...
. It received the award for Best Artistic Contribution, sharing honors with the film ''Kora''.
''Detachment'' also screened in competition at the 35th
São Paulo International Film Festival
The São Paulo International Film Festival ( pt, Mostra Internacional de Cinema de São Paulo), also known internationally as Mostra, is an annual film festival held in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. A non-profit event, the festival is organized ...
and won the Audience Award for Best Foreign Language Film, sharing honors with ''
Chicken with Plums''. On November 16, ''Detachment'' screened at the 53rd Muestra Internacional de Cine in Mexico.
In January 2012, ''Detachment'' won Best Picture at the Ramdam Film Festival in Tournai, Belgium.
Critical response
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "''Detachment''s heart is in the right place, but overall it doesn't offer any solutions to its passionate ranting."
On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the film has a weighted average score of 52% based on reviews from 20 critics.
Peter Travers
Peter Joseph Travers (born ) is an American film critic, journalist, and television presenter. He reviews films for ABC News and previously served as a movie critic for ''People'' and ''Rolling Stone''. Travers also hosts the film interview prog ...
from
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
awarded the film three out of four stars, praising the performances of Adrien Brody, Marcia Gay Harden and Lucy Liu. "''Detachment'' gets to you. It hits hard", he wrote.
A reviewer for Student Handouts, which reviews books and films for those working in education, said: "It easily makes ''
Dangerous Minds
''Dangerous Minds'' is a 1995 American drama film directed by John N. Smith and produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. It is based on the autobiography ''My Posse Don't Do Homework'' by retired U.S. Marine LouAnne Johnson, who in 1989 to ...
'' look like a pandering
Lifetime made-for-TV movie."
Detachment (2012) – Movie Review for Parents and Teachers
Student Handouts (March 16, 2012). Retrieved on April 24, 2014.
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Detachment
2011 films
2011 independent films
Films about educators
Films about suicide
2011 comedy-drama films
Films shot in New York (state)
Films directed by Tony Kaye (director)
Films scored by the Newton Brothers
American comedy-drama films
Appian Way Productions films
2010s English-language films
2010s American films