Tony Kaye draws up in this Detachment a dark portrait of a teacher's job and the US educational system, and delivers a striking but unfortunately not totally convincing movie.
The film's interest lies mainly in Adrien Brody's totally nuanced and excellent performance as a troubled teacher on the verge of breaking point, within a very good cast perhaps a bit too under exploited.
As for the script, it's not uninteresting, far from it, but the omnipresent darkness turns boring: after the hour mark, the viewer has enough of seeing all those depressed teachers and this completely depressing prevailing fatalism.
The other big problem is the cinematography, a lot too stylized, clearly lacking coherence in its approach and ultimately turning out to be too messy, serving the story badly.
The film's interest lies mainly in Adrien Brody's totally nuanced and excellent performance as a troubled teacher on the verge of breaking point, within a very good cast perhaps a bit too under exploited.
As for the script, it's not uninteresting, far from it, but the omnipresent darkness turns boring: after the hour mark, the viewer has enough of seeing all those depressed teachers and this completely depressing prevailing fatalism.
The other big problem is the cinematography, a lot too stylized, clearly lacking coherence in its approach and ultimately turning out to be too messy, serving the story badly.