A chronicle of three weeks in the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students through the eyes of substitute teacher, Henry Barthes. Henry roams from school to school, imparting modes of knowledge, but never staying long enough to form any semblance of sentient attachment.
Everywhere you turn in Detachment, someone is trying to make you feel like hell.
– Mary F. Pols,
TIME Magazine,
22 Mar 2012
fresh:
There's something weirdly effective about the artistic desperation, which includes inserts of chalkboard animation and to-the-camera testimonials.
– Robert Abele,
Los Angeles Times,
22 Mar 2012
rotten:
Detachment gets an A for enthusiasm but a C for execution.
– Linda Barnard,
Toronto Star,
3 May 2012
rotten:
The film is guilty of reverse sentimentality, where the relentless unhappiness comes to seem as manufactured and artificial as the schmaltz in a romcom.