Sensuality withheld

I'm miffed at Jane Dark for noticing details in Clean that I'd jotted down but failed to remark on in my post. Olivier Assayas's dispassionate camera, for example, simply observes Maggie Cheung devouring a cheeseburger and onion rings. We note quietly that it's probably the first junk food she's eaten after six months in the clink. We note also that Assayas doesn't linger on the scene, almost out of tact; she takes two or three bites at a time, stuffs the o-rings in her mouth, and we cut quickly to Nick Nolte, whose own gaze appraises but won't commit to a judgment -- yet.

Staring into space and calculating, figuring things out, waiting for the recoil he uncertainly expects from Cheung after each of his polite, hopeful rhetorical brutalities. They never come.

If I may permit myself a splendid generalization, Nolte's performance is the truest representation of goodness I've seen in recent cinema. His is a generosity of spirit leavened by the awareness that he courts humiliation at each juncture.