This is a sad and depressing movie about the human condition. It is only about the misery of being a teenager and yhe trials of being a teacher in a school where no one wants to be. Sorry to say there is no ballance to this movie. The cinematography is not done well, many of the sceens are shakey. It is more live a documentary then a movie. After 45 minutes I had to turn it off as it lacked the content to be called a drama or even a movie. The characters do not engage me and make me want to continue watching.

I'm glad I watched it despite the fact different people said it was too depressing. It's an excellent film about education, about the high school system and the educators' helplessness. Adrien Brody is Henry Barthes, a substitute teacher, who, for profound sadness rooted in his childhood, doesn't want to remain too long or too deep with anyone or anything. Marcia Gay Harden is the school bitter principal Carol Dearden who doesn't understand how much she cares until it's taken away from her. Each of the teachers, except one -James Caan as Mr. Charles Seaboldt, is solitary, suffering, on the verge of insanity.And then there are the pupils, rude, violent, with no boundaries. They too are sad, sad, sad, we realize, and if they are not sad, their life is hard or they have no future.Despite all this,Brody as Barthes has beautiful moments of compassion, and he forms bonds with one student and one minor working as a whore. He also has very ambivalent relationships with his hospitalized grandfather. All these bonds lead somewhere, not necessarily good or bad, but humane, and this makes the whole movie worthwhile.Comparing with The Class (2008) it has a much more solid narrative, and unlike The Class it does not try to appear as a documentary. I think that in The Class did not take a POV of a teacher and his limited perspective, so you got to see more of the pupils' lives. It stated specific social problems more than treated the general state of affairs. As a film, Detachment is more solid with better acting, pacing and story. As a social warning, perhaps The Class is stronger.

To sum up what Depressi- I mean Detachment is like, just realize this is a grand social critique by the man who directed American History X. This leads me to only one way to describe Detachment: its heart is in the right place and it has some compelling drama going for it, but it's too over the top to present its social critique in a completely convincing manner. In a way, the same problems that plagued American History X now plague this film.Our main character is a substitute teacher named Henry Barthes, played by Adrien Brody whose face has a melancholy quality that makes him a natural fit for this film. In addition to merely teaching what the school wants him to teach, he actively tries to engage the students on an emotional and ethical level, to teach them things about life and so on. He goes on about the corrupting influence of the media and how the students must learn to think for themselves, etc. You'd think that would be enough to fill one film, but we also get a prostitute Henry pick up off the streets and tries to take care. There's also Henry's dying grandfather who lives in a nursing home and various employees at the school with problems of their own. The film thus tries to paint an enormous critique of the high school system through various characters.What the film has going for it, are the same things American History X had going for it: great acting and drama. Adrien Brody and the rest of the cast are all quite great, particularly Brody. The film is at its preachy best during the classroom scenes where Henry outlines several societal critiques in his bid to truly educate his students in his short time there. Several other scenes, including one where Henry verbally lashes one of the nursing home's employees for not taking care of his grandfather's needs, also have a great sense of drama and whether or not you'll like/love/hate the film, there is no doubt that watching Detachment is an impactful, intense experience.The thing that really hurts this film, however, is the same thing that hurt American History X: over the top melodrama (complete with slow-motion). As the film goes on, the film becomes increasingly melodramatic to the point that it becomes detrimental to the messages the film intends to spread. When an important, tragic character dies at the end, it feels too much as if the film – like American History X – suffers from It's Not A Good Story, Unless Someone Dies syndrome and that's not what you want. You want the death to feel deserved, which I feel this film did not. Also detrimental are the amount of well-known actors in this film. This is one of those cases where the amount of stars don't mix with the type of film. An art-house film featuring a star-studded cast hurts its aims for 'realism'.In the end it's easy to see this film has its heart in the right place. One can sense the anger behind all the social critique delivered in its scenes. Yet it is director Tony Kaye's overwrought sense of drama that makes the film devolve into an ever increasing spiral of sadness and darkness which makes it hard to deliver the Big Message without alienating the audience. Too much melodrama can turn off an audience and that's what happened for me. The film started off incredibly well, featuring lots of well-delivered social critique, but by the end – especially when (spoiler) the overweight girl died – the film became too dark and cliché-ridden. There was no light at the end of the tunnel, no subplots that ended well. Now, this is of course in line with the aims of the film, but how can I stay open to its messages when all it gives me is a nonstop portrayal of a society trapped in a downward spiral, regardless of the truths the film contains?

I became curious about this film because I read where this film was Same Gayle's feature debut. I didn't know anything about this person other than her role on Blue Blood and that show limits her acting strength after seeing Detachment. Here was a film that Tony Kaye directed with an understatement that disguises the powerful argument for sterilization. The students have dissolved into disrespectful future parole violators and the parents, some of them, are the source of these problem children. And trying to ride that ship in turbulent waters in the Adrian Brody character. His attempts to settle those waters is a force of nature one man cannot do alone. But I don't know if he calms those waters following a tragedy or if all hell hits the place and that was a dream? I don't know how old Sami Gayle was when this role was filmed but her corrupt innocence is washed over as an abused prostitute. Her first time encounter with the Adrian Brody character isn't Pretty Woman, a film I hated for it's depiction of the happily ever after prostitute. Sami Gayle's prostitute had more realism to it. The only misgivings I had was that the audience never got to know the results from her medical test. Perhaps it was edited out for time. And the teachers were excellent. I saw where Adrian Brody was the producer for this project. He pulled some top notched actors that made this work. James Caan , Lucy Lui, Marsha Gay Harden, Christine Hendricks, the other guy who held on to the chain link fence, all were good. And while watching this, you had the feeling that some student might go off on the deep end and that was predictable and not unexpected but it was done with the right tempo and uniqueness, no gun play.And I saw where it didn't do well at the box office. Well, with video on demand, I hope this avenue will work out for them so that more eyes can watch this exceptionally independent film.