Detachment

Henry Barthes is a substitute teacher who moves from school to school, never staying long enough to form attachments to students or colleagues. His latest three-week assignment places him at a struggling high school in the New York area, where disrespect and hostility toward teachers are routine and the administration has grown discouraged. Teaching English and literature, Henry proves unusually skilled at reaching difficult students, though he prefers not to acknowledge that talent. Over those weeks, three women push against his habit of keeping his distance: a fellow teacher, a student, and a young homeless woman he takes in.

Tony Kaye directed the film, his second feature after American History X, from a screenplay by Carl Lund. Adrien Brody plays Henry, with Marcia Gay Harden as the principal, James Caan as a veteran teacher, Christina Hendricks as a colleague, Lucy Liu as a counselor, and Blythe Danner among the cast. The production involved 56 credited cast and 47 credited crew members and cost about 3 million dollars, a modest budget that its worldwide theatrical returns of roughly 2 million did not recover.

On IMDb the film holds 7.7 out of 10 from about 111,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.6 from just over 2,000. Those audience scores sit well above the critics' rating of 5.9 from 69 reviews, a gap suggesting the film connected more strongly with viewers than with reviewers.