Adoration finds Atom Egoyan trying to shape a psychological thriller as commercially as he can and ending up at his most cryptic.
Simon (Devon Bostick), an orphan cared for by his tow-truck driver uncle (Scott Speedman), begins to believe that his Arab father (Noam Jenkins) may have deliberately rammed a truck with his car to kill his mother.
He is further confused by his Lebanese teacher (Arsinée Khanjian, the director’s wife), who asks him to translate into French the story of a terrorist willing to sacrifice his pregnant wife to bomb a plane. The teacher then admits to being his father’s wife before he ran off with Simon’s mother.
Egoyan’s intentions are clear enough — he wants to discuss terrorism and the victimhood it implies, and the film moves elegantly enough through its assorted themes and plotlines. But it is too self-conscious by half and often unnecessarily complicated. It’s as if Egoyan, who wrote and produced it as well as directed, has so much on his mind that he can’t sort it all out.
Adoration
Cert: 15
