{"id":821,"date":"2017-05-06T07:27:46","date_gmt":"2017-05-06T07:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/2017\/05\/06\/httptheblurb-com-aureviewsthe-confirmation-movie-review\/"},"modified":"2017-05-06T07:27:46","modified_gmt":"2017-05-06T07:27:46","slug":"httptheblurb-com-aureviewsthe-confirmation-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/httptheblurb-com-aureviewsthe-confirmation-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Confirmation – movie review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Extremely contrived, but feel good entertainment, The Confirmation<\/i> is a story about a divorced man, an alcoholic carpenter, who is struggling to get by and his intelligent and perceptive young son.<\/p>\n

\"confirmation-01\"Clive Owen plays the down-on-his luck Walt, whose God-fearing ex-wife Maria Bello has remarried. She and her new husband Matthew Modine head off to a religious retreat, which enables eight-year-old Anthony (Jaeden Lieberher) to spend a short time with his dad for the first time in ages. Already awkward for both father and son, the weekend becomes a series of unfortunate events, as Walt desperately needs to retrieve a stolen toolbox for a job he has just landed. Among other things, he and Anthony need to deal with his truck breaking down and his landlord locking Walt out of his house because he has been unable to pay the rent. In pursuit of those precious tools, the pair encounters a series of eclectic characters, reconnecting and bonding in the process.<\/p>\n

Owen acknowledges he is attracted to characters in conflict. He says this film falls into that bracket. \u201cHe\u2019s a father, estranged from his son, who\u2019s trying to make a go of it and trying to do the right thing, and it\u2019s very difficult in his circumstances and he\u2019s got some demons he\u2019s dealing with.\u201d\u00a0 Lieberher acknowledges Anthony is a good kid who doesn\u2019t usually get into trouble until he is with his dad. \u201cHe\u2019s very curious about the world and curious about what his father\u2019s dealing with\u201d.<\/p>\n

Written by Robert \u201cBob\u201d Nelson (Nebraska<\/i>), who also makes his directorial debut with The Confirmation<\/i>, as pleasing as father, son, ex-wife and new husband are as characters, I\u2019m afraid they don\u2019t ring true for me. All seem far too respectful given the situation they are faced with. Everyone is polite to the extreme, which doesn\u2019t dovetail with the tensions they confront and the real dangers, which, to my mind, are dismissed too lightly. Relatively well mannered, too, is the oddball collection of characters they encounter along the way, including thieves.<\/p>\n