The one-two combination of Nolte's essential generosity and decency as an actor with Cheung's innate levelheadedness nicely gets around the customary trumped-up "conflict" movies over-rely on.

| Nov 19, 2013

A disappointment.

| Mar 2, 2008

Maggie Cheung gives an astonishingly complex performance as a junkie rock star trying to clean up her act.

Full Review | Oct 7, 2006

There are so many quiet, understated miracles unfolding in Clean that all you can do is watch in awe and amazement.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 30, 2006

It helps -- immensely -- that Cheung is pitch-perfect. Her performance is heartbreaking.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 30, 2006

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

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 29, 2006

The film locates its heart muscle, however, in its performances.

| Jun 24, 2006

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.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 24, 2006

Emily is played by Maggie Cheung with such intense desperation that she won the best actress award at Cannes 2004. Only a few actresses in the world could have handled this role from a technical point of view.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 23, 2006

It's a complex, very successful portrayal of an addictive, selfish, volatile soul who knows she might be running out of chances at a decent life.

Full Review | Jun 12, 2006

Assayas tells her tale sympathetically, but this sad saga lacks substance. He sells the wretch but not the redemption.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jun 9, 2006

It's a globe-trotting drama with more than a touch of Wim Wenders whim to it.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 9, 2006

It's the moral journey of Nolte's character that is the real story in Clean, but Assayas instead focuses on the manipulative habits of an addict, resulting in a mannered study of narcissism and self-pity.

| Jun 8, 2006

In Clean, Assayas returns to his comfort zone -- the world of appealing young people with interestingly chaotic lives -- and views it through the eyes of a woman who doesn't belong there anymore.

| Jun 5, 2006

Despite Cheung's efforts (she won the best actress award at Cannes in 2004) and a strong and subtle supporting performance by Nick Nolte, the story could have used a good dose of adrenaline to keep it from often seeming lifeless.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 26, 2006

The film that showed the world Maggie Cheung is more than just a strikingly beautiful face.

| Original Score: B- | May 25, 2006

Assayas' tale of the difficult search for redemption is less a standard road-to-sobriety story than a chance to marvel, close-up, at Cheung.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | May 25, 2006

One of those movies that's slightly off the mark in ways that are hard to put a finger on, but it is shot so soulfully and features such beautiful performances that it's easy to forgive the occasional false note.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 19, 2006

The chief pleasure in the picture is Nick Nolte's performance.

Full Review | May 12, 2006

Mr. Assayas has given us an international soap opera with little or no dramatic substance.

Full Review | May 10, 2006