Bob Nelson, the writer of Nebraska, makes his directorial debut with The Confirmation, another attuned character study of the economically depressed lower middle class Americans. The Confirmation centers on Anthony (Jaeden Lieberher), an eight-year old apprehensively reunited with his father Walt (Clive Owen) for a weekend visitation. A down on his luck carpenter and borderline alcoholic, Walt lives a rougher, poorer lifestyle than Anthony is used to and while he tries his best to care for Anthony, almost everything possible goes wrong immediately – his truck breaks down, he’s evicted from his house, he’s going through alcohol withdrawal, and someone steals a set of specialized tools that Walt needs to make his living. Desperate to get his tools back, Walt takes Anthony on a tour of the nexus of contractors and thieves in their small Washington town, meeting a range of friends and eccentrics (Robert Forster, Tim Blake Nelson, Patton Oswalt) and exposing Anthony to the social reality of modern America.
Owen portrays Walt as a proud man, despairing at the lapse in standards both personal and national even while he’s somewhat oblivious to his own decline. After his eviction, he must take Anthony back to Anthony’s mother’s house, Walt’s former home, where he is aghast at the lack of care given to wooden cabinets he built and other home repair issues, looking down on others for a lack of craftsmanship even while he’s mostly failing to provide for his son. But while he’s judgmental on standards of upkeep, he understands individuals and their troubles. Most of the people he encounters while looking for his stolen tools are even more deprived than he is; when he finally finds the thief and sees the poverty his family lives in, Walt walks away without retribution. Walt’s actions are poignant because they’re viewed through the lens of Anthony and his emerging sense of morality. Scenes in church bracket the film, as Anthony prepares for his confirmation. In the beginning, Anthony can find nothing to confess for, as his upbringing has sheltered him from difficult situations, but after his weekend with Walt, he can confess to a litany of sins, though the audience knows they were all committed with good intentions as he and Walt navigated a more morally murky social reality. Lieberher gives a great performance as Anthony, one with little overt emoting but constantly alert eyes, taking in and processing the world of Walt and people like him.
The Confirmation is a low-key film likely to be overlooked amongst flashier fare, but those who seek it out will find a good film that’s warm-hearted towards its characters yet clear-eyed about the harsh economic reality they live in. Like Nebraska, it uses close attention to the present to invoke the past and refracts this sense of national change through a strained father-son relationship. The result is an affecting look at small town America, that doesn’t shy away from showing decline while remaining hopeful towards the future.
