thomascapital OMG! The CIA whacked Jack! Come back to reality. The movie has great actors (Noah Wyle, James Rebhorn, Gretchen Mol, among others); however, the Libtards in Hollywood simply cannot tell a story without their crazed anti-American, Anti-CIA, anti-whatever being the core of the story.JFK was murdered by Oswald (with perhaps the aid of Sam Giancana). Bobby Kennedy was a ruthless and LAWLESS man. JFK had many flaws but was a great leader surrounded by lousy advisers! The movie is still worth watching as every 14 year old boy's fantasy comes to life and love is not what it is all cracked up to be! Had Jack lived he most likely would NOT have been re-elected as Goldwater was way ahead in the polls and the American public was still quite angry at the poor handling of Cuba and Kruschev!

njmollo An American Affair is a shamelessly anachronistic picture. The characters may dress in period clothes but their performances are very much of this era, 2009. There is liberal use of "modern" swear words that feel out of place in a movie set in this period. My first thought was that racial integration looked to be working a charm in this impression of 1960's America, as Black and White students go to class together, hang-out in the playground and even socialise at each others homes. Racism, still so prevalent in modern day America, is not broached in this movie.The picture begins as a point of view of a young student played superbly by the photogenic Cameron Bright. Cameron Bright is this movies saving grace and all the scenes without him feel forced and unnecessary. If it is established to be his view of the world then how can scenes take place in which he is not present and would have no knowledge? The integration of these scenes is forced and awkward.At one point he follows and listens to some evil CIA types. How would he be able to hear such a guarded conversation? Let alone be undiscovered. The scene is utterly implausible. Also the boy takes photos at night of his alluring next door neighbour. How could he do this with a normal 1960's manual camera? Suspension of disbelief is fine if presented plausibly.Finally the famous Washington stairs location that was used so definitively in The Exorcist (1973) makes a conspicuous appearance. This took me out of the movie completely and cheapened any impact of the ending.

CCsito The movie centers on a woman (Gretchen Mol) who has ties to President Kennedy and who is suspected of harboring state sensitive secrets. The Cuban missile crisis becomes the focal point of the movie and her ex-husband and godfather of her child are CIA operatives. Against this backdrop, they inject an early puberty teen who spies on the woman who is his neighbor. The teen tries to become close to his neighbor by working on her garden. The movie was filmed in the Georgetown neighborhood in Washington DC. The locale where the priest is shoved down the steps in Georgetown for the Exorcist movie also is shown in this movie. The movie has a bit of profanity, nudity, and sexuality for the R rating.I was raised in Washington DC and was very young when President Kennedy was assassinated. I attended inner city schools in Washington. This movie appears to have a somewhat anti-parochial school message on the film on how the teen encounters bullying on the school grounds and its depiction of the nuns who teach at the school. I attended an inner city public school and it was not as rough as it was shown for a parochial school back in the 1960s in this movie.The movie leaves one with the message that a conspiracy was behind the Kennedy Assassination and that anyone connected to him were on a "hit list". Strangely, the movie might have even carried the plot if you deleted the teen character. The movie appeared to waffle between being a "coming of age" movie and a Kennedy conspiracy movie.

ken-bld Some of the reviewers here obviously have never heard of, or read a book of, historical fiction. This movie did not begin with "True Story". Hence why expect it to be? Indeed, if a film about historical events was 100% accurate it would be so boring we'd then complain about that. Gretchen Mol did a superb job as usual. I first saw her in "Forever Mine". If she gets the right part she always delivers. The part of the young man was also well done. It is difficult to give much info without spoiling the plot. It has drama, romance and tragedy. All well done; the components of good movies. So watch it for yourself. And don't try to make historical comparisons as you do. That's not what this movie is about.Most of the bad reviews here come from those who did not see the typical Hollywood template film they expected. There are no Quentin Tarantino type influences here. It's not the typical American type template that has won the US only 5 Palm D Ors in drama at Cannes in the last 25 years even though we've put out tens of thousands of films! Yes if you expect the usual steamy sex, filthy talk, things blowing up, chase scenes, gun battles and bloody gore-filled murder scenes you will be disappointed. Sadly, there are few American made movies worth the time or expense at a cinema these days but this is one of them. You get to have your cake and eat it too.