The Confirmation

The A.V. Club by Adam Nayman

The Confirmation isn’t much to look at, and its rhythms are wobbly (the quest narrative starts to feel strained early on), but Nelson is a dogged enough dramatist that even the story’s resolutions—even the really pat and obvious ones—are satisfyingly earned.

Village Voice by Alan Scherstuhl

The movie's not just good but moving, funny and true to the way people actually live in hard-times America.

The New York Times by Andy Webster

The pleasures are modest but rewarding in Bob Nelson’s character study The Confirmation.

Slant Magazine by Elise Nakhnikian

The premise is undermined by the film's occasionally dubious ethics and its tendency to soft-pedal the dangerous situations it sets up.

Los Angeles Times by Gary Goldstein

Feature films these days rarely come as gentle and equitable as The Confirmation. It's a sweet, decidedly low-key little picture starring a deftly understated Clive Owen.

Observer by Rex Reed

In this case two mesmerizing performances by Clive Owen and his astounding co-star, a remarkably adroit child actor named Jaeden Lieberher, who is going places fast.

The Seattle Times by Soren Andersen

A surprisingly sweet-spirited picture about a man’s redemption and a boy’s initiation into the ways of the world.

Washington Post by Stephanie Merry

One of the selling points of The Confirmation is how it steers clear of melodrama or tidy perfection in favor of a taste of life on the margins, where even living paycheck to paycheck would be a luxury.

Philadelphia Inquirer by Tirdad Derakhshani

The Confirmation is a powerful directorial debut from 59-year-old writer Bob Nelson, who received an Oscar nomination for his first screenplay, Nebraska.

The Film Stage by Tony Hinds

Nelson’s screenwriting voice is unpretentious, approaching earnestly grounded characters with a deliberate lack of sentimentality.