Director: Atom Egoyan (Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter, Where the Truth Lies)
Screenplay: Atom Egoyan
Producers: Atom Egoyan, Simone Urdl, Jennifer Weiss
Starring: Arsinee Khanjian, Scott Speedman, Rachel Blanchard, Devon Bostick
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 100 min.

(2/5)

Looking at Atom Egoyan’s filmography, I’m having a hard time understanding how the director has come to garner the moniker of great filmmaker. It’s not to say that Egoyan is a bad filmmaker but outside of Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter his films have been more misses than hits and yet, when a new Egoyan film is announced I can’t help but get excited. It may be a subconscious need to see him return to form and I hoped Adoration would be the film to do it sadly, I was deceived and instead walked away sorely disappointed.

Devon Bostick plays Simon, a highschool student who is encouraged by his French teacher, played by Egoyan’s wife Arsinée Khanjian, to pursue a project in which he is to create a full story based on the false idea that his father was a terrorist who used his mother as a mule for a bomb. This story thread is quite the mind bender which raises more than a few questions: why the exercise? Why keep up the charade that this is fact rather than fiction? What are the effects of this story finding its way online? What does it say about our history and our current moral state if we think it’s OK to pursue a project like this one? There’s enough material here for an entire film but Egoyan leaves it open to interpretation. I know what you’re thinking: “Yes! Have faith in your audience! Expect them to discuss the idea!” and for the most part, I can go with that idea but for it to work, the filmmaker needs to provide enough material to warrant a discussion and here it feels like a fishhook lacking bait. I simply didn’t care enough about Simon and Sabine, the French teacher, to follow through on the discussion.

This “spread too thin” feeling isn’t limited to this plot but also to the rest of the threads which make up the fabric of this film. Though Simons’ fictionalized story makes up a large portion of the film, it’s the least interesting portion. I was much more interested in the relationship between Simon and his uncle Tom, a relationship which is strained at best, and though there is a constant nagging feeling that his storyline is of importance to the rest of the film, it’s never fully developed and instead, we get the development of another half baked story that explains why Tom is the way he is. And let’s not get started on Sabine, the teacher who starts this entire ball rolling. I can understand wanting to keep her motivation hidden until the end of the film but it’s simply not powerful enough to warrant her actions and the result is a feeling that you’ve just been duped by the actions of a crazy woman.

Though the story makes little sense, the film is not a complete waste. Egoyan knows how to make a nice looking film and Adoration is no exception; I was particularly taken by a beautiful moment in which Simon is reading his fictional story to his class and the camera pans along the classroom to reveal the blowing snow outside. Also a stand out is Scott Speedman who continues to show that he is more than simply good looks and action movies. He has quietly been building a nice resume of performances and I’m wondering what Hollywood is waiting for; he has “superstar in the making” written all over him.

Adoration weaves a tapestry which attempts to explore ideas of storytelling, the interconnectivity of today’s world and shared histories with a story of family loss and redemption. Those are a lot of weighty ideas to attempt in one film and though Egoyan makes a valiant effort, the resulting film is a collection of half formed ideas and reveals that lack emotion. It’s a disconnected film, one that tries too hard to say too much and fails on nearly all accounts.