If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

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.

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.

In 1963 I was a senior in high school. Later in 1963 I was a freshman in college. It was there, on my way to or from the cafeteria that I learned our President was shot.This movie, set in that time, brings back good memories for me, not that things were necessarily great in 1963, but because none of us will ever see 1963 again, time passes so quickly.In this fictitious account Gretchen Mol is Catherine Caswell, 30-something and divorced from her CIA husband. Catherine knows John Kennedy, she really "knows" him, and at times he comes to visit her during the night.Cameron Bright, about 15 during filming, is teen Adam Stafford, going through the raging hormone stage. Adam's bedroom window happens to be right across from Catherine's windows, and at night he often catches a glimpse of her. One night after quite a nice, partially nude glimpse, he takes to being very nosy. As in intercepting her mail, steaming it open, to find out more about this mysterious woman who seems to delight in that she can turn on a teenager.All this leads to Adam getting a job taking care of Catherine's yard, with a fringe benefit of becoming her friend. Overall the movie is more about Adam's coming of age (although he never gets close to sleeping with Catherine) than of Catherine's alleged affair with the President. In addition there is a subplot to get and destroy her diary which certainly would have sensitive matter in it.Good movie, better than the IMDb rating would indicate, in my judgement. Mol is an under-appreciated actress, beautiful and always delivers a memorable performance.

These days it's rare to come across a finely crafted film that plays every character -- and literally every moment of every scene -- with an uncompromising integrity. Instead of the usual attempt to make a marketable product that pulls the right demographic -- or pushes everyone's buttons -- or simply puts as many of the masses into the seats as possible, writer Alex Metcalf and director William Olsson follow their very resonant characters into the story generated quite naturally by these delicately entangled lives. Yes, there are elements of "coming of age", of "cloak and dagger", of "erotic thriller", etc. -- but it isn't really any of those. Like all really outstanding motion pictures, this film belongs to itself -- is its own category.Setting fictional characters into a piece of well-known history is in itself a major film-making challenge and not without its pitfalls. But there isn't a single false step here as Olsson juggles fact and fiction with seamless precision, managing to keep all the balls in the air. "An American Affair' is a quiet movie ... taking its time ... allowing you savor every sweet and sour moment. The music is minimal -- yet superbly appropriate and authentic to period. Never showy, the thoughtful camera work serves the characters and content very, very well.The performances are uniformly excellent -- with Gretchen Mol turning in a truly memorable tour-de-force portrayal of this complex, conflicted young woman. The erotic scenes are never overplayed -- they're tangible -- real. This is genuine eroticism -- not the showbiz kind. She plays the total woman at all times and yet retains that elusive air ... a lingering mystique. Can we -- can anyone -- really know her? We savor each tiny revelation that emerges through her many moods -- playful, seductive, cynical, childlike, creative, materialistic, conscientious, free-spirited, controlling, generous, vulnerable, self-serving. Mol plays every resonant note to absolute perfection and it's the key to making this film so unforgettable.This is the kind of movie that stays with you long after the lights come up. Hard to believe it's Olsson's first feature length film -- and it's made in the English language for North America's convenience! We have a lot to look forward to from this wonderful new addition to the world's motion picture auteurs.