Clean (2004)

The almost unbearable handheld in-your-face close-ups give way eventually to a character study of a woman struggling to get her life back after a crippling drug habit leaves her broken and alone.
Emily (Maggie Cheung) is the only constant in a sea of people giving other people the run-around. Her emotions do the same to her, but her motivations, which are purposefully kept semi-hidden, are bedrock for her to fall back on. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to believe in you.
It’s as happy as it sounds, but it was good to see Maggie keep her feet on the ground and get an opportunity to really act. She does it well, and in three different languages. Plus, Nick Nolte is superb.

3½ liner notes out of 5

À l'intérieur [Inside][207]

A widowed pregnant women is terrorized in her own home by a maniacal lady with an unhealthy obsession with her unborn baby.
Starting off incredibly creepy, filled with some intensely scary chills it soon falls into nothing but overly gory violence with no substance whatsoever.
Troubled French actress Béatrice Dalle turns in a very unlikable but effectively menacing performance as the crazy lady with a pair of scissors.
Be prepared to squirm while grasping onto your barf bag during the shocking finale. It's so unnecessarily gruesome, I have to give it credit for it's gore effects.
In the end, the performances are good, the gore effects are good, the setting is good...the writing is not and that hurts this film the most.

2 "Leave the cat out of this, you bitch"s out of 5