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One of 2006’s more welcome comebacks was that of American director Lodge Kerrigan, whose 1993 film Clean, Shaven remains one of the definitive screen studies of schizophrenia. This companion piece, produced by Steven Soderbergh, follows the unsmiling, haunted William Keane as he wanders the halls of the New York Port Transit Authority, harassing strangers and hassling himself whilst hunting the man or bus he believes took his young daughter away six months before.
Kerrigan locates real tension in what his unpredictable lead is going to do next, particularly when William befriends a single mother and appears to start functioning normally again. Lewis shrugs off his slightly-too-slick persona to deliver the first great performance of his career, making every one of Keane's paranoid delusions or irrational conclusions make sense in the context of the character. It's a performance, and a film, that adds significantly to our understanding of mental illness: here, but for the grace of God, goes every last one of us.

 

Mike McCahill on 18th December 2006
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