I have been a teacher for some fifteen years now. I teach English here in the Netherlands and have worked at a variety of schools, ranging from schools in poor neighbourhoods with lower level education to a broad school community, with predominantly white middle to upper class kids. I've taught at the latter for the better part of my career so far.

Why all this background information? Well, two reasons. Firstly in order for me to bring across how I feel about this film, I need to tell something about my job and how I see it. Secondly to make clear that this film isn't about America, or the worrisome state of the American education system. I'll get to what…

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised Tony Kaye’s return to filmmaking should be this melodramatic, heavy-handed and one-dimensional given his equally simplistic approach to racism in American History X. It is an approach that has served him well, critically at least, but personally I’m not a fan. Detachment is a film that attempts to bludgeon the audience into submission as we follow a substitute teacher numbed by life and the failings of the American education system. Filmmakers have mined this area for decades now but few have been so unrelenting in their pessimism and cynicism of both the education system and the state of the world.

It’s a film that numbs the audience (which is no doubt the point…

American History X is one of my favorite, most uncomfortable viewing pleasures and when I found out it's director Tony Kaye followed it up (for his first film in over a decade) with Detachment, I was excited. I had very high hopes and Kaye even exceeded my expectations. In fact, if you ask me, it's better than American History X and shows how much he's improved as a director. Like American History X, this film is uncompromising, uncomfortable, unflinching, and just plain compelling to watch.

Not many directors are able to express what's on their minds in terms of important and heavy subject matter without coming off as too preachy or obvious (take Bobcat Goldwaithe as an example of someone…

"A child's intelligent heart can fathom the depth of many dark places, but can it fathom the delicate moment of its own detachment?" Henry Barthes

Man this film was a tough watch! Adrien Brody is excellent here as a substitute teacher who's latest assignment finds him at a school where the kids are the worst of the worst and the teachers who have tried their best are at their wits end. Tony Kaye does an excellent job directing here because you practically feel the emotional weight the teachers and students carry. The story is a testament to how programs like no child left behind are a joke because millions of kids are left behind by parents who just don't want…

Detachment was one of my favourite movies because I always felt related to some of the well-done scenes. Especially the scene which involves the quote "It is so easy to be callous. It takes courage and character to care." I believe quotes like this seem corny and dull when said; however, I feel really connected to them when they appear in a good storyline.

One of it's bigger problems is that it tries too hard. I think the creator of this movie had many things to say and he struggled about how much of them he could show us. Education, youth, family problems, loneliness, childhood trauma, nihilism etc.

It's 7/10 for me because of the reason I mentioned before. But…