When aging rocker Lee Hauser overdoses in a squalid motel in a small Canadian town, his wannabe rock star girlfriend Emily (Cheung) is arrested for possession of heroin. Sentenced to six months' imprisonment, Emily re-emerges to find she has lost her son Jay (Dennis), who is being looked after by his grandfather, Albrecht (Nolte), in Vancouver. Determined to get herself clean and prove herself a capable mother, Emily takes off for Paris and hooks up with record producer Elena (Dalle). Meanwhile, Albrecht brings his terminally ill wife Rosemary to London for specialised tests, raising Emily's hopes that she might soon see her son again. A fractured, meandering narrative does Clean no favours, particularly when Cheung (who won Best Actress at Cannes, surprisingly) seems to be performing at an emotional distance to the rest of the cast; while the role calls for a degree of detachment, Cheung is completely severed from whatever impulse drove director Assayas to make his movie, and she's also far too fresh-looking to be convincing as an ex-junkie. The real star is a scarecrow-like Nolte, even though he has the good grace to underplay whenever he shares a screen with Cheung; unfortunately, he retreats too far in order to allow her shine and virtually backs out of the movie. Bloodless, dispassionate and more concerned with its look than its feel, Clean is far too sterile for its own good.
