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ADORATION
Director: Atom Egoyan
Cast: Scott Speedman, Arsinée Khanjian, Kenneth Welsh, Rachel Blanchard, Devon Bostick
Run Time: 100 minutes
Country: Canada
Year: 2008
Language: English
Rating: PG (Coarse language)
Winner of the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the recent Cannes Film Festival and an honourable mention from the Canadian Feature Film Jury at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival Adoration is the latest work by the legendary Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter, Where the Truth Lies). Set in a world ruled by paranoia and suspicion, the film is a powerful and disturbing meditation on identity and family secrets.
When translating a piece of writing for his high-school French class, teenaged Simon (Devon Bostick) decides to inject some of his own personal history into the exercise. Unfortunately, he plays with the truth more than a little, incorporating his own fantasies and the dark, disturbing stories told to him by his dying grandfather (Kenneth Welsh).
Somewhat surprisingly and mysteriously, he’s encouraged in this pursuit by his French teacher, played by Arsinée Khanjian (Ararat, Sabah). When the story winds up posted on a website, chaos erupts and Simon and his family are suddenly the topic of conversation for everyone in the community– friends, university professors, conspiracy nuts and all manner of Internet observers.
The set-up is vintage Egoyan, trading in family secrets and lies, with the incisive gravity and sometimes absurdist sense of humour that has won him admirers around the world. As in earlier films like Family Viewing, Speaking Parts and Exotica, Egoyan pays special attention here to the way that memories are preserved and information and mythology are passed on. Complicating things is cyberspace, which, as Egoyan presents it, offers immediate “information” but absolutely no guarantee that what is posted is true. Adoration explores the manner in which instant communication undermines reflection, inflaming deep-seated prejudices and fostering confusion and panic in these decidedly turbulent times. While the film unfolds through the prism of family dynamics, it is as much about our addiction to chatter and our corresponding inability to actually listen.
A courageous analysis of the contemporary context in which world leaders intentionally mislead the public and exploit our fear of the new or the foreign, Adoration may be Egoyan’s most timely film to date.
“Adoration is a haunting meditation on the nature of received wisdom and how it can warp individuals, damage families and even threaten society.” – Ray Bennett, The Hollywood Reporter
Reviews: www.metacritic.com/film/titles/adoration
Official Site: www.sonyclassics.com/adoration/
