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Canada · 2016
Rated PG-13 · 1h 41m
Director Bob Nelson
Starring Clive Owen, Jaeden Martell, Maria Bello, Tim Blake Nelson
Genre Comedy, Drama
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Walt, an alcoholic carpenter, is nervous about spending the weekend with his 8-year-old son while his mother is off with her new husband. But his plans for a quiet visit are ruined after his valuable toolbox is stolen. The two embark on a hunt for the thieves responsible — and bond along the way.
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.
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.
Nelson’s screenwriting voice is unpretentious, approaching earnestly grounded characters with a deliberate lack of sentimentality.
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