Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This is a beautiful little art house film about an alcoholic father who has his son for a weekend - and they bond of a series of misadventures were they work as a team to get back the father's box of stolen tools. The father is played by the masterful Clive Owen - who is seemingly solid in any project he works on. The film has one great scene in particular - where Clive experiences alcohol withdrawals. As a recovering alcoholic myself - who has been clean five years - I have gone through withdrawals - and it is a harrowing experience and to see this played out live - and the fear it puts the child through - it really hit home to me.The performance of the children actors in this movie is also noteworthy - as they hold their own and deliver some masterful work. I believe this was a remake of a foreign film called The Bike Thief - but I have never seen that movie and I just thought this one was solid.We live in a world where Hollywood makes a fortune off terrible films that have no soul - and it is always great to see a solid dramatic film with great characters.

It feels like a lifetime since I've seen Clive Owen in a movie. I thought he retired from acting. No matter. He shines like nobody's business in 2016's The Confirmation, a sort of cinematic slice of grated Americana (even though it was filmed in Canada). While watching this thing, you kinda wish it was all shot in black and white. Either way, I was easily enthralled.Owen plays Walt, an alcoholic trying to abstain from his intrusive habit. He goes through withdrawal, avoids temptation when he sees nothing but wussy wine coolers in his ex-wife's refrigerator, and turns his head when he drives up to various taverns. He knows that if he gets intoxicated, he'll never get to hang out with his son Anthony again (played wonderfully by Midnight Special's Jaeden Lieberher). Speaking of his son, well Anthony's first Confirmation and/or Communion is coming up. This vehicle chronicles him and daddy-o spending a weekend together leading up to those events.Clive Owen stripping himself down, shucks a cocky air and dives deep into character. His Walt in a sense, is a good person on the inside but at the same time, a down on his luck kind of guy. He's getting evicted from his house, his car won't start, and the tools he uses for his odd jobs in carpentry, have all been stolen. At a running time of 90 minutes, Walter and Anthony try to track down the thief of said tools and bond quietly in the process.Bottom line: The Confirmation despite being a little too dogged and small scale, is still a winner much of the way. With facile chemistry between the leads, it's more entertaining and less arty than most independent flicks.Containing a hoot of a supportive performance from Patton Oswalt, an almost unrecognizable Matthew Modine, and a setting complacent to the state of Washington (at least that's what the license plates revealed), "Confirmation" reminded me of 2000's Wonder Boys, last year's Grandma, and an Alexander Payne film (it seems logical being that director Bob Nelson wrote Payne's Oscar-nominated Nebraska). What's on screen is character-driven and whimsical with a certain aroma of sadness. In essence, it's like a road trip movie confined to a medium-sized town in which various, peculiar people fade in and out. And since The Confirmation is billed as a comedy, the humor is there but it's invariably dry and off-kilter. You have to pay really close attention in order to catch any truthful zingers (if you do laugh, it distracts you from what is otherwise a depressing yet rewarding experience).Rookie director Bob Nelson keeps the atmospherics damp and overcast but lets his camera mainly capture the forgotten love between father and son. He also wants you the viewer, to fixate on whether or not Walt can get his act together and get his misunderstood life back on track. Nelson edits in chunks as "Confirmation" goes back and forth between coming-of-age eradication (Anthony can't decide what to say at Confession, can't decide if he should go to church, and thinks he's not being true to his Catholic faith) and chronic alcoholism tutorials (when Walt can't get his hands on a stiff drink, he talks to himself and has weird stomach pains).Lastly, despite some rough edges to go along with a questionable PG-13 rating, The Confirmation still has a twangy, feel good soundtrack, decent camera-work echoing all things Payne, and a sense of being stately offbeat (that's a good thing, trust me). Rating: A "confirmed" 3 stars.

We watched this on DVD, a Redbox rental suggested by neighbors. The title refers to the Catholic process of teenage Confirmation after First Communion at 7 or 8.This is from the same writer-director that gave us 'Nebraska' (2013) where an old codger played by Bruce Dern was determined to get to Omaha to claim his prize advertised in a junk mail brochure. It too examined a father-son relationship.In the DVD extra he also mentions inspiration from the 1948 film "Bicycle Thieves", an Italian movie about a father-son team looking for his stolen bicycle. "The Confirmation" uses a stolen tool box, passed down from the grandfather, full of a finishing carpenter's tools of the trade. Clive Owen is the father, Walt and young Jaeden Lieberher is really effective as the young son, Anthony. Walt's former wife, Maria Bello as Bonnie, is going off to a Marriage Encounter weekend with her husband and Walt will take care of his son.Not much goes as planned, the pickup truck breaks down, he gets a finishing job that will allow him to ward off eviction but finds his tools are stolen. He borrows his ex-wife's car then finds it has no brakes, so he has to fix that. He asks around to see if any gossip in the small town will lead him to his stolen tools.My wife and I enjoyed the 100 minutes viewing but in truth it isn't that great a movie, not up to the caliber of "Nebraska". Walt isn't much of a role model, trying hard to get off the bottle, never telling the truth unless he is cornered. Some of his bad habits rub off on Anthony.For me the funniest part was when Anthony, a good boy, was in the confessional and telling the priest he didn't have any sins to confess. Probing several different avenues the priest asked if he had any naughty sexual thoughts, Anthony pondered for a couple of seconds then asked the priest to describe what that would look like. Later, after all the adventures when Anthony went back to confession he had a long list of "sins" to tell the priest, thanks to the adventures with his dad.

Walt, (Clive Owen) a recovering alcoholic, has his 8-year old son, Anthony (Jaeden Lieberher) for the weekend while his mother, Bonnie, (Maria Bello) and stepfather go away to a religious retreat. When Walt's specialized finishing tools are stolen he and Anthony get to know each other better trying to get back those tools that Walt desperately needs for his next job on Monday.This opens with Anthony in the Confessional Box and he cannot come up with any sins for the past 8-weeks. The Priest - almost at wits end - tries his best to help jog Anthony's memory but nothing surfaces. Anthony is undecided whether or not he should do his Confirmation. We see some unfortunate things happen to Walt that Anthony is surprised at but comes to understand that Walt is really a good person who is trying to do the right thing. We see Walt almost give in to alcohol, but Anthony becomes the adult and thwarts the attempt. Walt suspects Anthony but never lets him know it. Walt is always the good father, but acts more like a good friend and because of this Anthony gains new respect for him. Walt's friend Otto (Robert Forster) explains to Anthony what withdrawal symptoms are when Walt scares Anthony who thought his father was very drunk. It is possible that an adult Alien from outer space came to Earth and inhabited Jaeden as Anthony as we see him act more like an adult than an 8-year old. It's either that or Jaeden Lieberher is more than really good, or it was the Director doing all this. Whatever this is, it works big time. The chemistry between Walt and Anthony is so good you don't care how long it will take to find those tools. The banter between them including fatherly advice about Confirmation and Anthony's acceptance of it is pure gold. The dialogues are sincere and honest. And we see humor injected at times. You never want this to end.Clive Owen is one of the best actors around, and should be considered to be the next Bond, James Bond. My next choice would be Jim Caviezel. Will Smith would be my third choice, but I digress…………………This almost closes with Anthony in the Confessional box again listing sin after sin to the same priest who is now besides himself listening to the many sins Anthony spouts. And this is just one day after his last Confession. I would list them but then I would give away many of the things that happened to both of them as they went about finding those tools. So you see, Anthony (or that Alien) wasn't all that innocent in this trek. This does close with Bonnie watching Walt and Anthony saying good-bye until the next week-end and she knows Anthony's Confirmation will happen and Walt will be there. This is a great family movie and you may wish there were more movies like this. (we can only hope) (10/10)Violence: Not really just a little scuffle at a Pawn shop. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: Small stuff and not much of it.