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Movies / On DVD / An American Affair
An American Affair

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An American Affair (2009)

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Reviews Counted:35

Fresh:6

Rotten:29

Average Rating:3.8/10

Consensus: With a plot both undercooked and cliche riddled, An American Affair unsuccessfully mixes a coming-of-age story and a presidential conspiracy thriller.

Rated: R [See Full Rating] for sexual content and language.

Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:Feb 27, 2009 Limited

Synopsis: Washington DC, 1963: the Cuban Missile Crisis is last year’s news, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s young administration is starting to hit its stride. Behind the scenes, however, winds... Washington DC, 1963: the Cuban Missile Crisis is last year’s news, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s young administration is starting to hit its stride. Behind the scenes, however, winds of discontent are swirling.

Thirteen-year-old Adam Stafford has his own problems to deal with. At that uncomfortable age when both everything and nothing seems possible, he’s a bit of a loner, a kid who spends too much time wrapped up in his own thoughts as he suffers through the daily grind of nuns, bullies, and girls at Holy Cross School. Until the evening his adolescent yearnings come to life: Adam spies a beautiful naked woman in the house across the street, and his curiosity is inflamed. The woman is Catherine Caswell, a stunning thirty-something blond beauty who has just moved in. Captivated, Adam is determined to learn all he can about his new neighbor.

Catherine is an artist, a divorcee and a confidante (if not more...) of JFK. Against all odds, an unlikely friendship blossoms between the innocent thirteen-year-old and the world-weary survivor.

But friendship is never enough, not in Washington, and not at the height of the Cold War. Catherine’s hidden past soon catches up with them as she and Adam find themselves enmeshed in the growing confusion and intrigue leading to the assassination of the President.--© Screen Media [More]

Starring: Gretchen Mol, James Rebhorn, Cameron Bright, Mark Pellegrino

Starring: Gretchen Mol, James Rebhorn, Cameron Bright, Mark Pellegrino, Perrey Reeves, Noah Wyle

Director: William Sten Olsson

Director: William Sten Olsson
Screenwriter: Alex Metcalf
Producer: Kevin Leydon, William Sten Olsson
Composer: Dustin O'Halloran
Studio: Screen Media

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Release:

Jul 28, 2009

[DVD Details]
 
 

DVD Features:

  • Region [unknown]
  • Anamorphic Widescreen - 1.78

Audio:

  • Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
  • Subtitles: English, SDH, Spanish

Additional Release Material:

  • Deleted Scenes
 
 
 
 

Reviews for An American Affair

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1 - 20 (sorted by critic A-Z)
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Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

The Cuban Missile Crisis is a year passed and the assassination is looming, and yet Adam's pubescent crises are given Wagnerian emphasis.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
02/27/09
John Anderson
John Anderson
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The most compelling moment comes from archival footage.

Full Review Source: Metromix.com | comment Comment
02/27/09
Geoff Berkshire
Geoff Berkshire
Metromix.com

The immersion of a titillating, gender-altered Lolita story into the political framework of 1963 strikes a chord of wanton misuse of dramatic license.

Full Review Source: Cinema Signals | comment Comment
02/21/09
Jules Brenner
Jules Brenner
Cinema Signals

An implausible drama about some Washington D.C. people plotting around the time of the assassination of JFK.

Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice | comment Comment
02/27/09
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice

Did Metcalf spend a weekend watching "Summer of '42" and "JFK" and decide they'd make a good mash-up?

Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | comment Comment
02/26/09
Laura Clifford
Laura Clifford
Reeling Reviews

The reason to see An American Affair is Gretchen Mol.

Full Review Source: New York Magazine | comment Comment
02/23/09
David Edelstein
David Edelstein
New York Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Here's the best thing I can say: that it refrains from having its 13-year-old protagonist have sex with Gretchen Mol.

Full Review Source: Hollywood & Fine | comment 1 Comment
02/26/09
Marshall Fine
Marshall Fine
Hollywood & Fine

Before An American Affair is over, you can be sure that Adam will learn a very familiar life lesson.

Full Review Source: PopMatters | comment Comment
03/08/09
Cynthia Fuchs
Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters

so absurd and convoluted that even JFK's legacy can't subdue its preposterousness

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
07/22/09
Bill Gibron
Bill Gibron
Filmcritic.com

Subscribes wholeheartedly to the history-as-pornography school of thinking, in which all will be revealed if you can figure out who is sleeping with whom, when and where and what they do in bed.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
02/27/09
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Gretchen Mol, lounging semi-nude as she smokes near an open Georgetown window, would spark any young man's curiosity and recklessness. But the assassination story line is absurd.

Full Review Source: Hollywood Reporter | comment Comment
02/27/09
Kirk Honeycutt
Kirk Honeycutt
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It's all presented so earnestly... that you barely realize at the time how preposterous it all is. Intrigue! Cubans! The Bay of Pigs! JFK! It's the coming-of-age tale filtered through the mind of Oliver Stone,

Full Review Source: Flick Filosopher | comment Comment
02/27/09
MaryAnn Johanson
MaryAnn Johanson
Flick Filosopher

The relationship of a 13-year-old innocent with a sophisticated 30-something woman is credible: not so much the political conspiracy.

Full Review Source: Compuserve | comment Comment
02/18/09
Harvey S. Karten
Harvey S. Karten
Compuserve

Painfully contrived

Full Review Source: At the Movies | comment Comment
03/02/09
Ben Lyons
Ben Lyons
At the Movies
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Start to finish, [the film] makes absolutely no sense.

Full Review Source: At the Movies | comment Comment
03/02/09
Ben Mankiewicz
Ben Mankiewicz
At the Movies
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

A dash of Ingmar Bergman and Oliver Stone in this Capitol Hill noir, as kinky DC sexual politics collide with flaky JFK conspiracy theories, and Bay of Pigs CIA boozer masterminds wonder if communists are having more fun.

Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | comment Comment
02/22/09
Prairie Miller
Prairie Miller
NewsBlaze

If you can get past the exploitation-of-minors thing, there's a tawdry exuberance to moments like the one in which the twerp and his overage girlfriend drunkenly splash paint on each other.

Full Review Source: NPR | comment Comment
02/26/09
Bob Mondello
Bob Mondello
NPR
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

JFK meets Notes on a Scandal meets Rear Window? An American Affair has some promise and potential, but its main ideas remain messy and undeveloped.

Full Review Source: Film Journal International | comment Comment
02/27/09
Eric Monder
Eric Monder
Film Journal International

This is not, by any reasonable definition of the term, a professional film, even though several experienced and established actors have been inveigled to inhabit it

Full Review Source: Wall Street Journal | comment Comment
02/27/09
Joe Morgenstern
Joe Morgenstern
Wall Street Journal
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Sketchily written, clumsily directed and poorly acted, even history-conspiracy aficionados will be left cold.

Full Review Source: New York Daily News | comment Comment
02/26/09
Joe Neumaier
Joe Neumaier
New York Daily News
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
 
 
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Latest News for An American Affair

March 01, 2009: A dash of Ingmar Bergman and Oliver Stone in this Capitol Hill noir, as kinky DC sexual politics collide with flaky JFK conspiracy theories, and Bay of Pigs CIA boozer masterminds wonder if communists are having more fun. Opens in new window
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