Movie Review - Adoration (2009)

Starring Scott Speedman, Rachel Blanchard, Devon Bostick, and Arsinée Khanjian
Directed by Atom Egoyan

I'll be completely honest here and say right off the bat that I'm not 100% sure what director Atom Egoyan was trying to say here. He's definitely tackling the notion of communication via the internet and how lies can much more rampantly be spread in this new technological age. But I think he's also touching on the fact that all religions can also spread lies just as easily as computers...discussing the notion that killing others in order to spread one's faith is intrinsically opposite to what 'faith' stands for. Granted, that idea isn't anything new...so, in the end, the film really isn't presenting anything we haven't heard before in that department which is why it doesn't pack as much of an emotional wallop as I hoped.

Teenager Simon's (Devon Bostick) parents died in a car accident when he was a young boy. He's living with his uncle Tom (Scott Speedman), but he's not exactly a happy kid. His French teacher, Sabine (Arsinée Khanjian), who also happens to be the school's drama teacher, presents him with an assignment to weave a twisted tale about his parents -- to "put on a show" stating that his father set his mother up to bomb a plane traveling to Israel without her knowledge. When the bomb doesn't go off, both his parents are accused of the terrorist act. Little does Simon know that this drama assignment will balloon out of proportion...and may change his attitude towards everything in his life.

There's a big flaw in the film in that I find it hard to believe that none of Simon's fellow students would have known a thing about his parents' true deaths in a car accident. There's a big deal made about the fact that Simon's uncle has desperately struggled to keep Simon in the home that he grew up in so that he wouldn't have to deal with moving around as a young kid. If that's the case, why wouldn't his fellow students -- his friends -- know about his parents' death? Since the whole film forms its basis around this "lie," it fails story-wise.

Still, it's an intriguing premise and a thought-provoking one (even if, as I stated above, it's not something "new"). With the exception of a godawful Rachel Blanchard as Simon's mother, all the actors bring some hefty emotion to the table. Scott Speedman (who I know from J.J Abrams' first tv show Felicity) and Arisinée Khanjian are the two standouts and their final confrontational scenes together proved quite suspenseful.

It's unfortunate that the film just doesn't click overall because there's something intriguing here, but it misses the mark.

The RyMickey Rating: C-