so absurd and convoluted that even JFK's legacy can't subdue its preposterousness
An American Affair (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:35
Fresh:6
Rotten:29
Average Rating:3.8/10
Consensus: With a plot both undercooked and cliche riddled, An American Affair unsuccessfully mixes a coming-of-age story and a presidential conspiracy thriller.
Synopsis:
Washington DC, 1963: the Cuban Missile Crisis is last year’s news, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s
young administration is starting to hit its stride. Behind the scenes, however, winds...
Washington DC, 1963: the Cuban Missile Crisis is last year’s news, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s
young administration is starting to hit its stride. Behind the scenes, however, winds of
discontent are swirling.
Thirteen-year-old Adam Stafford has his own problems to deal with. At that uncomfortable age
when both everything and nothing seems possible, he’s a bit of a loner, a kid who spends too
much time wrapped up in his own thoughts as he suffers through the daily grind of nuns, bullies,
and girls at Holy Cross School.
Until the evening his adolescent yearnings come to life: Adam spies a beautiful naked woman
in the house across the street, and his curiosity is inflamed. The woman is Catherine Caswell,
a stunning thirty-something blond beauty who has just moved in. Captivated, Adam is determined
to learn all he can about his new neighbor.
Catherine is an artist, a divorcee and a confidante (if not more...) of JFK. Against all odds, an
unlikely friendship blossoms between the innocent thirteen-year-old and the world-weary survivor.
But friendship is never enough, not in Washington, and not at the height of the Cold War. Catherine’s
hidden past soon catches up with them as she and Adam find themselves enmeshed in
the growing confusion and intrigue leading to the assassination of the President.--© Screen Media
Starring: Gretchen Mol, James Rebhorn, Cameron Bright, Mark Pellegrino
Starring: Gretchen Mol, James Rebhorn, Cameron Bright, Mark Pellegrino, Perrey Reeves, Noah Wyle
Director: William Sten Olsson
Director: William Sten Olsson
Screenwriter: Alex Metcalf
Producer: Kevin Leydon, William Sten Olsson
Composer: Dustin O'Halloran
Studio: Screen Media
Reviews for An American Affair
An earnest, fictional coming-of-age story is squeezed from a bitter, true-life local tragedy. And it works.
Out of its mind at a deep, essential level, An American Affair plays its dubious scenario with a straight face that makes the silly thing quite watchable.
The title sums up the bland, unimaginative and cliche-laden thriller/coming-of-age tale.
Before An American Affair is over, you can be sure that Adam will learn a very familiar life lesson.
There are scenes that work here and there, but regrettably not nearly enough to hold the film together. In the end, this affair is definitely not one to remember.
Turns out An American Affair needed more than a name change to save itself from embarrassment.
Even the famous M Street stairs from "The Exorcist" are out of place in the climax of this lightweight movie.
It's all presented so earnestly... that you barely realize at the time how preposterous it all is. Intrigue! Cubans! The Bay of Pigs! JFK! It's the coming-of-age tale filtered through the mind of Oliver Stone,
This is not, by any reasonable definition of the term, a professional film, even though several experienced and established actors have been inveigled to inhabit it
It's a good rule of thumb that any film that grandly puts "American" in its title is going to try to make some statements way beyond its pay grade.
Gretchen Mol, lounging semi-nude as she smokes near an open Georgetown window, would spark any young man's curiosity and recklessness. But the assassination story line is absurd.
An implausible drama about some Washington D.C. people plotting around the time of the assassination of JFK.
JFK meets Notes on a Scandal meets Rear Window? An American Affair has some promise and potential, but its main ideas remain messy and undeveloped.
The Cuban Missile Crisis is a year passed and the assassination is looming, and yet Adam's pubescent crises are given Wagnerian emphasis.
Latest News for An American Affair
March 01, 2009:
A dash of Ingmar Bergman and Oliver Stone in this Capitol Hill noir, as kinky DC sexual politics collide with flaky JFK conspiracy theories, and Bay of Pigs CIA boozer masterminds wonder if communists are having more fun. ![]()
More...
February 26, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Jonas Brothers Fizzles
This week at the movies, we've got teenybop pop (Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience, starring Jonas Brothers) and a video game adaptation (Street Fighter: The Legend of... More...
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