Susan Granger’s review of “Detachment” (Tribeca Films)
Reminiscent of “The Blackboard Jungle,” this is a scathing indictment of our public school system, focusing on the grim, nightmarish experiences of a high school substitute teacher.
World-weary Henry Barthes (Adrien Brody) leads a lonely life. Shuttling from school to school, he fills in when other teachers drop out. This month, he’s teaching English 11 in New York’s inner-city, where the vast majority of students show little or no interest in learning and their parents are either aggressive or apathetic. In order to maintain his sanity, Henry sheathes himself in the armor of austere detachment, refusing to allow the toxicity of students’ profane taunts or dire administrative traumas to alter his stoic demeanor. But he’s a charismatic instructor, briefly reaching out to Meredith (Betty Kaye, the director’s daughter), a bullied, overweight student with artistic talent.
Unable the raise her school’s test scores, frustrated Principal Carol Dearden (Marcia Gay Harden) faces dismissal, while Guidance Counselor Doris Parker (Lucy Liu) struggles against utter despair. Barthes’ faculty colleagues include vulnerable Ms. Madison (Christina Hendricks), volatile Mr. Seabolt (James Caan), exasperated Ms. Perkins (Blythe Danner), and hapless Mr. Wiatt (Tim Blake Nelson), who is not only unable to maintain order in his classroom but also seemingly invisible to his television-fixated wife and computer-obsessed son.
In the evening, Barthes dutifully visits his aged grandfather (Louis Zorich), dying in a nursing home and often delusional, evoking flashbacks of Henry’s alcoholic mother who was driven to suicide. But on the bus back to his apartment one evening, Barthes encounters scrappy, street-savvy Erica (Sami Gayle), a homeless 15 year-old prostitute, offering her temporary solace and shelter, thereby taking the first step on the road to parental commitment and caring about someone else.
Existentially scripted by Carl Lund, a former public school teacher, and stylistically conceived by Tony Kaye (“American History X”), it’s deliberately provocative, propelled by Adrien Brody’s restrained yet passionate performance, augmented by blackboard and photo animation.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Detachment” connects with a soulful, surrealistic 7, making an angst-driven declaration about contemporary desolation.
