Born in Egypt and raised in Canada
The story involves a teenage boy
named Simon (Devon Bostick) and his uncle, Tom (Scott Speedman). They both seem
to be having a difficult time with life, Tom struggling to make enough money to
raise his sister’s son away from his hateful father. Things only get worse for
Simon when his French teacher, Sabine (Arsinee Khanjian), gives a translating
assignment about a terrorist threat. When he tells the story as though his
deceased parents were the ones involved, Sabine insists that he repeat the
exercise out-loud to his class. After that he tells the story to larger
audiences, and they all believe it to be true. The deeper issue is why Simon
seems to believe that this story is close to his own truth about his parents’
death.
Egoyan tells the
story out of order, building tension in the uncertainty of each character’s
intentions. We get a sense of who these people are in their actions, but often
these actions are seen out of context the first time around. In his
presentation of the story, Egoyan utilizes film as a way to show that sometimes
it there is more beneath the narrative than we can see on the surface level. In
fact, there is always more beneath the surface, but occasionally the characters
are just as ignorant to this fact as the audience.
If this sounds
confusing, it is mostly because any Egoyan film follows the characters with
dedication as their paths cross. He is brilliantly capable of showing the
intertwining of strangers’ lives, though his characters are also often also
much more complex. There are no simple answers in Adoration, and some may find that this film asks too much of the
audience, providing too few answers by the final frame. This may be true, but
if everything were shown and told, there would be far less to discuss and
speculate after the film.
Entertainment Value:
7/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 8/10
Historical
Significance: 7/10
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