Opening

87% Star Trek Into Darkness May 16
24% Erased May 17
91% Frances Ha May 17
44% The English Teacher May 17
42% Black Rock May 17
77% Pieta May 17
—— Populaire May 17
21% 33 Postcards May 17

Top Box Office

78% Iron Man 3 $72.5M
50% The Great Gatsby $50.1M
47% Pain & Gain $5.0M
37% Peeples $4.6M
77% 42 $4.6M
56% Oblivion $4.1M
69% The Croods $3.6M
98% Mud $2.5M
8% The Big Wedding $2.5M
60% Oz the Great and Powerful $1.1M

Coming Soon

—— The Hangover Part III May 23
77% Fast & Furious 6 May 24
—— Epic May 24
94% Before Midnight May 24

Clean (2004)

tomatometer

72

Average Rating: 6.6/10
Reviews Counted: 64
Fresh: 46 | Rotten: 18

In one of her best roles, Cheung gives a believable and arresting performance as a recovering addict.

69

Average Rating: 6.2/10
Critic Reviews: 29
Fresh: 20 | Rotten: 9

In one of her best roles, Cheung gives a believable and arresting performance as a recovering addict.

audience

53

liked it
Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 14,515

My Rating

Movie Info

A woman throws herself into a last-ditch struggle to conquer her demons in this gritty drama from director Olivier Assayas. Lee Hauser (James Johnston) is a faded rock star who lives with his wife, Emily Wang (Maggie Cheung), the former host of a European music video show, in a small town in Western Canada. Both Lee and Emily have been battling drug addiction for years, and when Lee finally dies of an OD, Emily finds herself charged with possession of heroin and ends up spending six months in

R,

Art House & International, Drama

Olivier Assayas

Jul 18, 2006

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Cast

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All Critics (67) | Top Critics (29) | Fresh (47) | Rotten (19) | DVD (6)

A disappointment.

March 2, 2008 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader
Chicago Reader
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Cheung makes her character work, despite a weak plot and script, both by director Assayas.

October 13, 2006 Full Review Source: Miami Herald
Miami Herald
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Maggie Cheung gives an astonishingly complex performance as a junkie rock star trying to clean up her act.

October 7, 2006 Full Review Source: Salon.com
Salon.com
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There are so many quiet, understated miracles unfolding in Clean that all you can do is watch in awe and amazement.

June 30, 2006 Full Review Source: Seattle Times
Seattle Times
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It helps -- immensely -- that Cheung is pitch-perfect. Her performance is heartbreaking.

June 30, 2006
Philadelphia Inquirer
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It's a joy to watch the characters in this grown-up drama interact, their exchanges laced with anger and doubt, sadness and regret.

June 29, 2006 Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
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A tough tale that gives a fresh perspective and brittle honesty to the experiences of a recovering drug addict.

March 3, 2008 Full Review Source: Film4

A worthwhile examination of the crash landing of a delusional junkie with an attitude who has no business behaving like a spoiled-rotten diva.

July 12, 2007 Full Review Source: Philly Limelight
Philly Limelight

It's a movie about bad choices and suffering the consequences and unfortunately, a lot of the suffering is done on the audience's side of the movie screen.

December 27, 2006 Full Review Source: TheMovieChicks.com

While this somber drug-abuse drama contains few surprises -- it's pretty much what we've come expect to expect from such material -- Cheung's convincing performance as a drug addict is what makes it watchable.

July 7, 2006 Full Review Source: Deseret News, Salt Lake City
Deseret News, Salt Lake City

While it may sound like the premise for a Lifetime movie starring Tori Spelling, Clean pulls off the difficult task of telling a deeply emotional story without slipping into excessive sentimentality.

July 7, 2006
Show Business Weekly

Cheung reveals a wealth of intense emotions, never once going for a predictable emotional chord.

July 7, 2006
Salt Lake Tribune

The rough, exposed emotional candor of Cheung's singing voice carries into her performance...

June 29, 2006 Full Review Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The viewer comes to identify with Jay, feeling jerked around and not really wanting to get to know Emily, a lost soul who isn't worth two hours of audience investment to find.

June 29, 2006 Full Review Source: Arizona Daily Star
Arizona Daily Star

One of the most emotionally honest movies about drug addiction ever made. Well, maybe not addiction per se, but rather the attempt to disgorge oneself from heroin's grip.

June 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle
Austin Chronicle

Beautifully shot and cut, written with a visceral aversion to cliche, deftly skirting sentimentality, sensationalism and simplicity, it continually surprises, engages and satisfies.

June 23, 2006 Full Review Source: Oregonian
Oregonian

Audience Reviews for Clean

Impossible not to think about Kurt and Courtney, even if inspite of choosing to bring up a "glamourous" drug and rock n´roll world (or the typical approach of junkies trying to clean up), the movie focus on a woman trying to change her life and to get her son back.

Another interesting point is that it´s not really a sweet movie about mother and son knowing each other and getting close. Emily is not likeable and she´s not even sure if she wants to settle down. However, it´s more to a "typical" drama movie than any other Olivier Assayas´s movies (I´ve seen) where "nothing really happens".


June 21, 2009
5oclockcoffee

Super Reviewer

Clean is all about the slow burn. It keeps itself thankfully distanced from the histrionics and melodrama of a typical drug movie, instead immersing itself in the ephemeral dream pace that most indie movies have. For what it's worth, not much actually seems to happen, and the development is far too subtle for most of the idiots on Flixster to comprehend. You can't blame people for finding the movie slow, but the path to recovering from addiction is a slow one.

Maggie Cheung completely owned this role. She gives one of the most powerful, troubled, convictive performances I've seen in a very long time. Nick Nolte is great, as well, but this is Cheung's movie.

Don't bother picking this one up if you consider yourself even slightly short of attention.
February 11, 2007
ceWEBrity

Super Reviewer

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