Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan is a man with considerable talent and the desire to be in complete control. His new film, "Adoration," opening today, reflects that passion. He serves as writer, director and producer, and his characters often show the same need. This works much of the time, but in the end, Egoyan drives this film right off the road and into a ravine.
It may be the genesis of the film, or it may not, but in 1986, a Lebanese man packed a bomb in the luggage of his pregnant girl friend, and sent her off on a vacation. He stayed home. If the bomb had gone off, some 380 people would have died, but security forces intercepted the luggage.
Simon, a high school student played with mature charm and teen-aged confusion by Devon Bostick, becomes convinced that he is the child of that couple and writes a play about it for a class. His teacher Sabine, a lovely portrayal by Arsinee Khanjian, encourages him to expand it. Simon’s parents were killed in an auto accident.
Since then, Simon has been reared by his uncle, Tom, a rough-and-ready tow truck driver with his own problems. But Simon visits his dying grandfather, who hated the man who married his daughter and thinks he provoked the accident.
Before Egoyan is finished, he has tried to stuff an entire school of fish into a creel that will only hold a couple. Loose ends abide, symbolism runs wildly up and down the field, detouring madly and running off in all directions at once.
"Adoration"? Not hardly. General dislike? Yep!
At the Plaza Frontenac
-Joe