Clive Owen is so handsome and an excellent actor who needs to be seen more on screen and TV. Equally as significant and talented is the youthful 8 year-old who played Anthony;keep an eye on this kid. As it progresses, the characters flesh out revealing the father's desire to stay close to his son while battling unemployment, alcohol, mean people. All the kids in this movie are accomplished at their craft and endearing demonstrating what life is like for so many kids today while they walk that unpredictable line between parent's weakness vs desire to be loving to their kids.THIS is a MUST SEE MOVIE that stays with the viewer through subtle plot and good acting.

The words you would most likely use to describe "The Confirmation" would be along the lines of "amusing", "enjoyable", and "nice". "Hysterical", "inspirational", and "engrossing" would be far too emphatic for this picture.The premise is uncomplicated. A divorced, alcoholic father, Walt, gets his 8-year-old son, Anthony, for the weekend while his ex-wife and her replacement husband leave town for a weekend trip. His ex stresses that the son, Anthony, needs to stay out of trouble because next week is his first communion and confirmation. Within minutes of the beginning of the movie we're made to understand how concerned she is about her ex-husband being up task of looking after Anthony for the weekend.Not long after he picks up his son, it's discovered that the tools Walt needs to work a job opportunity on Monday (which he desperately needs since he has been evicted from his home and his truck has broken down) has been stolen out of the back of his truck.Walt and Anthony then spend the bulk of the movie attempting to track down his missing tools that he so desperately needs.An almost hypnotic element of the movie is that nearly all the characters seem to inhabit a world where everyone is unrealistically inoffensive. There are fisticuffs and thievery, lots of lying, and a little harmless B & E for flavor, but in general the conflicts are strangely gentle.Take the fistfights and physical confrontations: have you ever personally watched a T-ball game? You kind of end up rooting for all the players regardless of which team they're on. The players all seem confused and not entirely clear on what's supposed to be happening. You just sort of want someone to be successful at what they're doing because so little success is happening overall.Here's an example. Along the way Walt and Anthony pick up Drake as an aid to tracking down the missing toolbox. Drake leads them eventually to two brothers, Tucker and Trout, who operate a small garage. Before long, when confronted, Trout decides he doesn't like being accused of stealing a toolbox and out comes a semiautomatic which he points at Walt, Anthony and Drake. At about that point, Walt's ex, Anthony's mom, calls Anthony on his cell phone to check up on Anthony and make sure he's okay. Politely, the gun goes out of sight until the phone call is over. Not really sure why. But it comes back out again when the call ends. Eventually Tucker tells Trout to put the gun away because he can tell just by looking at Walt that he's "hurting", presumably sensing how Walt is struggling with alcohol withdrawal. Suddenly Drake just decides to ignore the presence of a gun and proceeds to paw his way through their shop looking for the toolbox, which isn't there, and Walt and Anthony and Tucker strike up a conversation. Tucker pleasantly admits that he and Trout both "love Drake, but he sometimes gets funny ideas". What comes out in the wash is that Drake has a screw loose and is probably currently on meth but just really really wanted to help. He really likes helping people; he's just not very good at it.The whole movie is like that. I think the only truly mean characters in the whole movie are the pawnshop owner and his boy. Even the new husband of the ex-wife isn't a villain and tries very hard to make Walt feel welcome. And when we finally catch up with the thief, he and his wife and two little girls are far more pathetic than they are evil, and all Walt and Anthony can do is just walk away.This movie is described as a comedy, but I don't know if it's really legitimate to say that. It's certainly not a tragedy or a drama; the dramatic elements are more sort of gently goofy than dramatic.The movie's depiction of alcoholism and its effects are unreasonably optimistic which is kind of a clunky note. Delirium tremens, unmonitored and treated can lead to death in many instances, and is one of the more dangerous addictions to recover from. One bad night and then pretty much functional the next day is not very realistic in my experience.You will not laugh or cry but will probably smile and might even chuckle once or twice. Walt and Anthony and Bonnie and the new husband all pretty much end up liking each other. Walt and Anthony have had a pretty grand adventure together for a weekend and the two of them now feel a bond that was missing, and you'll go home happy that Walt got his tools back.

One reviewer has insight-fully recognized this film as a remake of the Bicycle Thieves by Vittorio de Sica. I'm impressed by his insight but not by his judgment.You see, even a bleak copy of the Bicycle Thieves will make a good film as long as there is still a scene in it resembling the slapping scene at the end of the Bicycle Thieves and there is such a scene but my impressing reviewer missed it because it is not as broadly laid out as the mentioned scene in the original but very touching and thoughtful nevertheless.In this scene the father does not get slapped. On the contrary, he is slapping somebody else but in the midst of this slapping he is interrupted and made to realize that the thief that he is slapping is a family man just like himself, driven to desperation by poverty and he cannot go on slapping the man and instead he forgives him. This is great Cinema and makes this film a worthy remake of the Bicycle Thieves and its end scene.Hats off.

It feels like a lifetime since I've seen Clive Owen in a movie. I thought he retired from acting. No matter. He shines like nobody's business in 2016's The Confirmation, a sort of cinematic slice of grated Americana (even though it was filmed in Canada). While watching this thing, you kinda wish it was all shot in black and white. Either way, I was easily enthralled.Owen plays Walt, an alcoholic trying to abstain from his intrusive habit. He goes through withdrawal, avoids temptation when he sees nothing but wussy wine coolers in his ex-wife's refrigerator, and turns his head when he drives up to various taverns. He knows that if he gets intoxicated, he'll never get to hang out with his son Anthony again (played wonderfully by Midnight Special's Jaeden Lieberher). Speaking of his son, well Anthony's first Confirmation and/or Communion is coming up. This vehicle chronicles him and daddy-o spending a weekend together leading up to those events.Clive Owen stripping himself down, shucks a cocky air and dives deep into character. His Walt in a sense, is a good person on the inside but at the same time, a down on his luck kind of guy. He's getting evicted from his house, his car won't start, and the tools he uses for his odd jobs in carpentry, have all been stolen. At a running time of 90 minutes, Walter and Anthony try to track down the thief of said tools and bond quietly in the process.Bottom line: The Confirmation despite being a little too dogged and small scale, is still a winner much of the way. With facile chemistry between the leads, it's more entertaining and less arty than most independent flicks.Containing a hoot of a supportive performance from Patton Oswalt, an almost unrecognizable Matthew Modine, and a setting complacent to the state of Washington (at least that's what the license plates revealed), "Confirmation" reminded me of 2000's Wonder Boys, last year's Grandma, and an Alexander Payne film (it seems logical being that director Bob Nelson wrote Payne's Oscar-nominated Nebraska). What's on screen is character-driven and whimsical with a certain aroma of sadness. In essence, it's like a road trip movie confined to a medium-sized town in which various, peculiar people fade in and out. And since The Confirmation is billed as a comedy, the humor is there but it's invariably dry and off-kilter. You have to pay really close attention in order to catch any truthful zingers (if you do laugh, it distracts you from what is otherwise a depressing yet rewarding experience).Rookie director Bob Nelson keeps the atmospherics damp and overcast but lets his camera mainly capture the forgotten love between father and son. He also wants you the viewer, to fixate on whether or not Walt can get his act together and get his misunderstood life back on track. Nelson edits in chunks as "Confirmation" goes back and forth between coming-of-age eradication (Anthony can't decide what to say at Confession, can't decide if he should go to church, and thinks he's not being true to his Catholic faith) and chronic alcoholism tutorials (when Walt can't get his hands on a stiff drink, he talks to himself and has weird stomach pains).Lastly, despite some rough edges to go along with a questionable PG-13 rating, The Confirmation still has a twangy, feel good soundtrack, decent camera-work echoing all things Payne, and a sense of being stately offbeat (that's a good thing, trust me). Rating: A "confirmed" 3 stars.