15, 102mins
Olivier Assayas takes a look at the aftermath of a rock’n’roll lifestyle in Clean, a film he wrote for his former wife, the actress Maggie Cheung. She plays Emily, a rock chick who is blamed by the press for her musician husband’s fatal overdose. Cheung’s black widow is a brittle mess of spindly limbs and spidery spiked hair. She has a son, but her addiction is a seemingly insurmountable wall between Emily and a normal life.
It’s a tough role for Cheung — like many chronic addicts, there’s little left of Emily’s personality except a well of self-pity. And Assayas’s unfocused and uninvolving screenplay doesn’t really help her much. The highpoints of the film are the scenes in which Nick Nolte, as the father of Emily’s dead husband, brings soul to a bloodless story.