Movie Ratings That Actually Work    Become a Member

"One of the 50 Coolest Websites...they simply tell it like it is" - TIME

Detachment | 2011 | NR | - 7.5.10

A long-term sub (Adrien Brody) drifts between various teaching jobs, until he finds a connection with the students and teachers at a high-risk school. Also with Christina Hendricks, Marcia Gay Harden, James Caan, Lucy Liu, Blythe Danner and Tim Blake Nelson. Directed by Tony Kaye. [1:37]

SEX/NUDITY 7 - We see a set of female legs (she is wearing a short skirt) and a man's face as he moans (it is implied that the female is performing oral sex on him in the back of a public bus); then a teen girl stands up and shouts at the man to give her money and the man slaps her as another man watches (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A man walks in on a teen girl performing oral sex on a man (the girl is wearing a bra and underwear); the man runs away after paying the teen girl and the man who interrupted them asks her how she is able to have sex for money.
 An older woman is seen, fully nude, sitting on a toilet (her bare breasts and a portion of her genitals are visible). A woman's bare breasts and torso are seen as she lies on the ground; the woman is presumably deceased. A man looks at a pornographic magazine: we see female bare breasts, a woman holding male genitals and a woman that appears to have ejaculate on her face. An older man shows a teen girl an up-close photograph of a woman's genitals, infected with an STI, the teen girl acts disgusted and the man implies that the teen girl will end up the same way if she does not change her behavior; the teen girl tells the man that she does not perform oral sex on every person who approaches her and she storms away. An older man asks a teen girl if he can see her breasts, the teen girl turns him down, and the older man points out that he can see them because of her inappropriate shirt.
 A man invites a teen girl back to his house where he looks at her inner thighs (there is blood on them and she has a cut on her lip), she makes a sexual remark about it being $100 to touch her as the man asks if she has been raped, and the teen girl does not answer and instead offers the man oral sex; the man then helps clean the cuts on the teen girl's inner thighs and she takes a shower (the teen girl falls asleep in the man's bed and he sleeps on the floor). A teen girl, presumed to be a prostitute, offers to go back to a man's apartment and the man turns her down.
 A teen girl cries and a man tries to comfort her by hugging her; a woman interrupts them, shouting at the man saying that it was inappropriate for the man to be in the room with the teen girl by herself. A teen girl threatens a woman that she will have a group of people "gang rape" her (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A man tells a teen girl that he thinks that "something" happened when his mother was younger, between her and his grandfather, implying sexual abuse. A man reads aloud a eulogy written by a teen boy: it has a crude sexual act described, implying that women will miss the teen boy's genitals. A man tells a classroom of teens that women are being portrayed as only sexual objects, and he then makes a crude remark about women being defecated on, as portrayed in the media. A teen girl makes a crude remark to her father that she should have been born with male genitals. A teen boy makes a crude sexual remark to a teen girl. A woman makes a crude sexual remark to a man about wasting her time. An older man remarks that he likes to watch a woman walk out of a room.
 A woman kisses a man. A man kisses a woman's foot and asks her to kiss him; she declines. An older man and an older woman dance and hold hands.

VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - Several teenagers watch, along with a man and a woman, as a teen girl eats a cupcake (we see a flashback of the teen girl recording a suicide video and pouring drugs out of a vial, implying that the cupcake had been laced with drugs); she collapses to the ground and we see blood on her face as a man tries to revive her and we see EMTs place a sheet over her body and place her in an ambulance.
 We see a teen boy holding a cat in his hands, and a man later finds the boy stabbing and using a hammer to hit a book bag as a group of teens watch; the boy has blood on his hand and it is implied the boy had killed the cat (a man grabs the boy and the book bag and drags him away).
 We see a teen boy throw another teen boy against a bookcase, the boy falls to the ground and the attacker kicks him in the face and chest repeatedly until two men drag them apart (the attacker continues to shout). A man slaps a teen girl in the face.
 A social worker drags a crying teen girl away from a man while the girl grabs for the man's hands and arms as the other man carries her away. A woman experiences a flashback of a teen girl verbally threatening her, shouting that she will have a group of men "gang rape" her and the girl then spits in the woman's face (we see the woman wipe away the spit from her face).
 A man throws a desk and he lifts up the desk and smashes it to the ground as a woman shouts at him while he shouts back and storms away. A teen boy grabs a male teacher's briefcase and throws it against a wall, threatens the man, and the man calmly asks the teen boy to sit down and the boy does so. A man purposely drops a vase and a woman watches him, horrified. We see a chalkboard drawing of two hands clutching prison bars and bending them inward. A man and a teen girl playfully "swordfight" with brooms in a store.
 An elderly man is seen in a bed with an IV attached to his arm and a teen girl tells the elderly man's grandson that the elderly man is dying. We see a teen girl having her blood drawn; we see blood fill the vial. An elderly man tells a man (his grandson) that he had urinated on himself, we see a male nurse change the elderly man's pants and the elderly man is seen wearing a diaper.
 A man tells a teen girl that his mother had died when he was younger, and that he had found her dead on the floor; the man experiences a flashback of himself as a boy, watching his mother. We see a man standing in front of a bed, it is implied that his grandfather had died and the man picks through a box of the elderly man's things. An elderly man remarks, "Some old people sleep a lot before they die," as he climbs into bed.
 A teen girl shouts at a man, asking why he had allowed another man to hit her; the teen girl corners the man and he attempts to break away from her. A teen boy threatens an older man and the older man laughs and then repeats the threat back to the teen in a variety of accents and impressions. A woman storms into a room and shouts at another woman, an older man tries to calm her down, turns her and walks her away. A woman shouts at a teen girl, and the woman cries and shouts at the girl, saying that her life will become "a circus of pain" and she screams and throws a book. A man shouts at a woman, threatening to have the woman fired from her job for neglecting her patient and the woman appears terrified. We see several teens in a classroom as a teacher shouts at them to sit down and we see a wad of paper hit him in the chest. An unseen man shouts at a teen girl (his daughter) and she begins to cry. An elderly man shouts through a locked door; the elderly man comes out of the room when another man encourages him, the elderly man says that he had imagined that he was talking to his daughter (the man's mother). An older man tells a woman that he would have "killed someone" and "thrown a kid out the window" if he did not take anti-depressants. An elderly man tells his adult grandson that when he stops coming to visit he will die. An older man and a woman laugh as they discuss how a man had died and they were not upset. A man asks several teens in a classroom to write what they think would be said at their funeral. A man reads aloud a variety of eulogies written by teens about what they believe would be said at their funerals, including one teen girl's eulogy ending in that she committed suicide. A male teacher tells a teen girl that a fellow student, a teen boy, had verbally assaulted him but he does not allow himself to be upset when people insult him. We hear a man listen to an answering machine message that states that he can no longer come into work as a teacher because he is tired of being mentally abused by students. Several men and women discuss how a teen boy had exhibited violence toward animals and has a predisposition to being a sociopath. An elderly man apologizes to a man, the man mimics a woman's voice, acting like he is the elderly man's daughter and the elderly man implies that he had "hurt" the woman when the man imitates a woman's voice and tells the elderly man that he can die without fear.

LANGUAGE 10 - About 54 F-words and its derivatives, 6 sexual references, 19 scatological terms, 9 anatomical terms, 13 mild obscenities, 1 racial slur, 5 derogatory terms for homosexuals, name-calling (sick old man, perv, total burnout, shallow disgusting creature, little kid, stupid selfish child, angry, miserable and mean, undereducated drone, crazy, lemon, child-hater, fossil, stupid), exclamations (shut up), 2 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - An older man offers a woman "happy pills" and we see him hold out a prescription pill vial and take two as the woman remarks that she is worried about him, and a man reads aloud a paper from a teen boy about a group of teens smoking marijuana. A woman drinks a glass of liquor, a man and a woman drink wine at dinner, a woman holds a glass of wine, and a teen girl asks for "something harder" when a man hands her a glass of orange juice. A man smokes a cigarette, a teen girl asks a man if he has a cigarette, and a woman smokes a cigarette and holds a glass that presumably contains liquor.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Difficulties of teaching, teaching in inner city schools, depression, No Child Left Behind, making a difference, failure, suicide.

MESSAGE - Being a teacher can be extremely difficult.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


how to
support us

PLEASE DONATE

We are a totally independent website with no connections to political, religious or other groups & we neither solicit nor choose advertisers. You can help us keep our independence with a donation.

NO MORE ADS!

Become a member of our premium site for just $1/month & access advance reviews, without any ads, not a single one, ever. And you will be helping support our website & our efforts.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

We welcome suggestions & criticisms -- and we accept compliments too. While we read all emails & try to reply we don't always manage to do so; be assured that we will not share your e-mail address.

how to
support us

PLEASE DONATE

We are a totally independent website with no connections to political, religious or other groups & we neither solicit nor choose advertisers. You can help us keep our independence with a donation.

NO MORE ADS!

Become a member of our premium site for just $2/month & access advance reviews, without any ads, not a single one, ever. And you will be helping support our website & our efforts.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

We welcome suggestions & criticisms -- and we will accept compliments too. While we read all emails & try to reply we do not always manage to do so; be assured that we will not share your e-mail address.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter

Know when new reviews are published
We will never sell or share your email address with anybody and you can unsubscribe at any time

You're all set! Please check your email for confirmation.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This