CNS Movie Review: An American Affair

An American Affair

By John Mulderig
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) -- The CIA was behind the assassination of President John Kennedy and nuns are cruel bullies. Those are only two of the questionable messages conveyed by the odd coming-of-age tale "An American Affair" (Screen Media).

Set in 1963 Washington, the drama follows 13-year-old Catholic schoolboy Adam (Cameron Bright) as he spies on, and eventually becomes obsessed with Catherine (Gretchen Mol), a free-spirited artist who lives in his Georgetown neighborhood. Adam's rivals for Catherine's affections include not only her ex-husband, Graham (Mark Pellegrino), a CIA agent who wants her back, but the aforementioned chief executive of the United States, whose trysts with Catherine are concealed by the Secret Service.

Also hovering around the painter is Graham's sinister boss, Lucian (James Rebhorn), who pumps her for information about the president since his own lines of communication with the Oval Office have been severed in the wake of the Bay of Pigs debacle.

Alarmed by Catherine's Bohemian reputation, Adam's otherwise indifferent parents -- journalists Adrienne (Perrey Reeves) and Mike (Noah Wyle) -- urge him to shun her. But, when not locked in the bathroom with a copy of Playboy magazine -- in a thoroughly uncomfortable scene, Mom and Dad joke within earshot of Adam about his habit of self-gratification -- or dodging his malignant, ruler-wielding teacher, Sister Mary Eunice (Lisa-Lisbeth Finney), he persists.

Though she repeatedly declines his ardent advances, Catherine, who apparently considers herself above such middle-class conventions as privacy and modesty, does allow Adam to observe her bedroom encounter with a married man from his hiding place in a screened wardrobe. "Never be ashamed of being excited," she advises him afterward.

Along with promoting wayward values, director William Sten Olsson's cliche-ridden feature debut clumsily attempts to graft historical events onto a personal narrative of adolescent sexual yearning and aspirations for independence. The failed aesthetic hybrid that results becomes squirm-inducing well before newspaperman Mike nonchalantly announces that he has to go to Dallas in November.

The film contains brief graphic adulterous sexual activity, masturbation, voyeurism, upper female nudity, a pornographic image, some rough and crude language, and a couple of uses of profanity. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is O -- morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

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Mulderig is on the staff of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. More reviews are available online at www.usccb.org/movies.

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Copyright (c) 2009 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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