Detachment (film)
Detachment is a 2011 American drama film directed by Tony Kaye and written by Carl Lund. Its story follows Henry Barthes, a high-school substitute teacher who becomes a role model to his students and others. It stars Adrien Brody, Marcia Gay Harden, Christina Hendricks, William Petersen, Bryan Cranston, Tim Blake Nelson, Betty Kaye, Sami Gayle, Lucy Liu, Blythe Danner and James Caan.
Detachment
Carl Lund
- Greg Shapiro
- Carl Lund
- Bingo Gubelmann
- Austin Stark
- Benji Kohn
- Chris Papavasiliou
Tony Kaye
Barry Alexander Brown
Geoffrey Richman
Tribeca Film
- April 25, 2011 (Tribeca)[1]
- March 16, 2012 (United States)
100 minutes
United States
English
$1.7 million[2]
Produced by Greg Shapiro, Carl Lund, Bingo Gubelmann, Austin Stark, Benji Kohn, and Chris Papavasiliou, the film was released on March 16, 2012, to mixed reviews.
Production[edit]
Filming took place in Mineola Middle School and Mineola High School on Long Island, New York.
In the same month, director Tony Kaye said in an interview. "My agent sent me this fantastic piece of writing by a guy called Carl Lund. A writer. One of the things that I felt was how real it was. And writing is really about research and speech and I thought this guy’s really done his homework. In fact it turned out that he had been a teacher. So then it all became very clear. And then when it really began, if you like, really really began was when Adrien Brody sort of popped up and said I’ll do this. A couple of weeks before we were supposed to start to shoot. And then I decided myself at that point I’m gonna hang the whole thing on you [Brody]. And try to build out your character of Henry much more and make it all everything about you. Just you.” The interviewer then asks Kaye if he rebuilt the script at that point. Kaye responds, “Well I reinterpreted it, yeah. When Carl first wrote it, I believe it was a very vignette ensemble thing." ”Carl's script was very impressionistic, and [a] part of what I do, sometimes, [is] very impressionistic storytelling. I used that to its full, here, to try and make sense of it all....[3] There's more [footage] of Marcia Gay Harden and Bryan Cranston [which] I've got in the hard drives, and I'm hoping to [get] it out, in maybe a longer cut." [4]
Release[edit]
Detachment premiered on April 25, 2011, at the Tribeca Film Festival.[1] Pretty Pictures acquired rights to distribute the film in France.[5] In September 2011, Tribeca Film acquired U.S. distribution rights with Celluloid Dreams repping worldwide sales rights.[6] Territories sold include Benelux (Wild Bunch), Italy (UBU), Middle East (Shooting Stars), Russia (CP Digital), Latin America (California), India (Pictureworks), Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam (PT Parkit) and Taiwan (Cineplex).[7]
On September 9, 2011, Detachment screened in competition at the 37th Deauville American Film Festival in France.[8] It won both the Revelations Prize and the International Critics' Award.[9] On September 18, Detachment was announced as the Closing Night Film at the Woodstock Film Festival, where Kaye was the recipient of the Honorary Maverick Award.[10]
On October 12, 2011, Detachment screened in competition at the Valenciennes International Festival of Action and Adventure Films in France, where it won the Grand Prize and the Audience Award.[11] Later, on October 26, the film screened in competition at the 24th Tokyo International Film Festival.[12] It received the award for Best Artistic Contribution, sharing honors with the film Kora.[13]
Detachment also screened in competition at the 35th São Paulo International Film Festival and won the Audience Award for Best Foreign Language Film, sharing honors with Chicken with Plums.[14] On November 16, Detachment screened at the 53rd Muestra Internacional de Cine in Mexico.[15]
In January 2012, Detachment won Best Picture at the Ramdam Film Festival in Tournai, Belgium.[16][17]
Critical response[edit]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 57% based on 72 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Detachment's heart is in the right place, but overall it doesn't offer any solutions to its passionate ranting."[18] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 52% based on reviews from 20 critics.[19]
Peter Travers from Rolling Stone awarded the film three out of four stars, praising the performances of Adrien Brody, Marcia Gay Harden and Lucy Liu. "Detachment gets to you. It hits hard", he wrote.[20]
A reviewer for Student Handouts, which reviews books and films for those working in education, said: "It easily makes Dangerous Minds look like a pandering Lifetime made-for-TV movie."[21]