ADORATION
Directed by: Atom Egoyan
Starring: Devan Bostick, Scott Speedman
PLOT: I
had headaches watching this film; here’s come another one to explain its plot.
Prompted by his teacher to write a fictional story about his parents, an orphan
kid (Bostick) looked after by his uncle (played Scott Speedman’s beard), is
launched into a quest, one that has to do with his mommy’s violin, the lies in
his story that he embraces and then spreads via the internet as fact. Bugh. You
see this face? Of course you can’t – its one of a BORED man.
CRITIQUE:
I never got into ATOM EGOYAN’s work much. I mean let’s face it, he’s
the only dude who set a film in a strip club (Exotica) and managed to make it
boring, pretentious and un-sexy. So I won’t lie, I dragged my feet… DRAGGED
THEM… when I had to go see ADORATION at
Cannes
today. Now do keep in mind two things: 1- The French LOVED IT!. 2:
This is NOT my kind of movie, so this opinion is coming from that point
of view, a guy who doesn’t care for pompous, long winded, existential, poor me/boo-oo
drivel. Do with that what you will.
I’ll
give the ADORATION this; it moved at an even pace, sported some decent acting
and visuals that screamed Hitchcock in terms of mood and shots. And thank god
for the presence of Scott Speedman in the film. Not only did his impeccable
beard own the scenery and often out-acted the others but he was pretty much the
only character that spoke like a regular human being hence I could relate and
actually care for him. I guess Speedman had “speaking normally” in his
contract. Good for you Speedman don’t take any shit!
Now
don’t get me wrong, Egoyan is a talented director – I just don’t care for
the scripts of his films. And there was the rub. The overly “dramatic for the
sakes of it” story at hand and the
somewhat dizzying way (i.e. back and forth in time) it was told to me turned me
off. Furthermore, I was expected to
care for these people and their plight? COME ON! Why did everybody talk like
they just came out of
Snob
School
? Damn, even the teens in this flick spoke eloquently and in high brow fashion.
I guess
Toronto, where the film was shot and set in (Enough CN tower shots for ya?
Sheesh!) changed dramatically since l last went there (a month ago). Teens swear
and have lousy grammar there too! The teens here didn’t sell me as
“real”.
Then we
had the leads’ journey. Maybe it would’ve had some impact on me if it
didn’t reek of been there done that way too many times within Egoyan’s
repertoire and the art house scene in general. Hey kid, get over it, your
parents are gone, its just a violin, grow up, get a job, get a girlfriend and
move on! Live my life for day man,
at least you OWN a violin! To make matters worse the YAWN bigotry/racism subplot
didn’t do much if anything for me, because eh, again, been there done that…
TOO MANY TIMES! Finally, the blatantly manipulative score insulted me. Its going
to take more than :”cry cry for me” violin music to make me feel, give me
characters that bathe, have heart, a spine and that speak like regular human
beings, try that then maybe you’ll get me to care.
Look, in
all fairness, it wasn’t an awful film. Just not my kind of film (too high
brow) and derivative for it to stand tall and proud on its own. If Led
Zeppelin were to record variations on Stairway to Heaven and then try to pass
them off as original material – they’d be pretty damn close to what Egoyan
has done with this film. NOTE: Why
does Canadian cinema have to either be about fart jokes or essays in the
self-pity and morose – do something else already! It got old in the 90’s!
Rating: 4/10
