Film Reviews

Adoration

• Rating:
• Director: Atom Egoyan.
• Starring: Scott Speedman, Devon Bostick, Arsinee Khanjian
• Details: Canada / 100mins (TBC).

So strong in it's opening hour, as writer-director Atom Egoyan (Where The Truth Lies) jumps across different time-lines to create a confusing but attention-grabbing puzzle, Adoration's ambitious storytelling falls apart in its final third. Simon (Bostick, Saw VI) is an orphan brought up by his small-minded uncle, Tom (Speedman, The Strangers). A bright student, Simon surprises his teacher, Sabine (Khanjian), when he takes a simple assignment of translating a newspaper article on an aborted terrorist attempt to blow up a plane heading for Israel (a near tragedy where a Jordanian man planted a bomb in his unsuspecting pregnant girlfriend's luggage), a step further. Simon wants to personalise it, to imagine that the bomber was his father, the girlfriend his mother and him the unborn child she was carrying. Impressed, Sabine encourages Simon to present his story as fact and soon Simon's tale spreads to the Internet with even the flight's 'survivors' believing his fake persona and take part in his late night chat room debates. However, as Sabine investigates the true story behind Simon's parents' death, she discovers that her story is closer to his than she first thought... Or something. Adoration is confusing not only in idea but also in style. Egoyan skips forward and back in time, building a puzzle, with every scene bringing something new to the table and twists the story further. There's an edge to the drama - the audience isn't privy to all that's going on, as the characters, knowing more than the audience, keep the viewer in the dark. It's heavy going at times as the story attempts to get under the fingernails of religion, violence, xenophobia and their consequences. Solid lead performances from Speedman, Bostick and Khanhian (Egoyan's wife) are backed up by Rachel Blanchard, Noam Jenkins and Kenneth Walsh (as Simon's mother, father and grandfather respectively). And then it gets clunky. Egoyan proved with Where The Truth Lies that he writes too much and he ties himself up in knots and twists, only to ruin all his good work with easy get-outs. In Adoration’s final third, Egoyan gives up on the time-jumps and settles down to wrap up his story in the straightest manner possible; ironically this is where his film doesn't work. The unnecessary big reveals towards the close would put EastEnders to shame and belittle the themes Egoyan was trying to tackle in the set up.

Review by Gavin Burke