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Affliction

1997

Paul Schrader

Nick Nolte, James Coburn, Sissy Spacek, Willem Dafoe ...

7.0

7,358

Drama Based on the novel by Russell Banks, AFFLICTION is a sobering, absorbing psychological study of the precarious relationship between an abusive father and his two sons. Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte) is a middle-aged ineffectual sheriff in a small New Hampshire town, where he and his brother, Rolfe (Willem Dafoe), were raised. When events shatter the quiet of his small town, Wade is forced to confront the past and reexamine his life, ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Janet Maslin The New York Times	"Schrader has made a film that needs to be watched carefully (...) 'Affliction' succeeds in finding something larger than one man's misery"	POS
United States	Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times	"Nolte and Coburn are magnificent in this film, which is like an expiation or amends for abusive me (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	Stephen Hunter The Washington Post	"It has a lot more raw power. Its crudity is both its strength and its weakness (...) But like the bitter cold in which it's set, 'Affliction' bites hard and true."	POS
United States	Lisa Schwarzbaum Entertainment Weekly	"Affliction -- a beautiful bummer, a magnificent feel-bad movie -- is American filmmaking of a most rewarding order"	POS
United States	Edward Guthmann SFGATE	"There's a timeless feeling to 'Affliction,' an elemental quality that recalls biblical parables, Greek tragedy and the stark films of Ingmar Bergman."	POS
United States	New York Post	"A compelling, at times bone-chilling study of the male character in crisis."	POS
United States	Todd McCarthy Variety	"The story is a bleak one that adroitly uses the conventions of a misguided murder investigation to probe the derelict lives of its principal characters"	POS

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