Synopsis for Adoration: Simon is an orphan teenager who lost both his parents and live under the custody of his uncle who is his mother's sibling. Simon's father is a Muslim Arab and his mother is a white Christian. In his French language class he decides to weaves his assignment, a story about a failed terrorist attempt to bomb a commercial airplane, with the history of his family. His French language teacher helps him and encourage him to present it as a theatrical exercise. But when the story spiral out of control and becomes an internet sensation with people from different backgrounds and opinions, Simon has to confront his feelings toward his identity, shaped so far by his grandfather's account of hate and prejudice toward his father, while his uncle and his teacher has to deal with the precautions and fall out of the controversy.
<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/pLuu2Asb9RQ&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/pLuu2Asb9RQ&rel=1</a>]]> This drama is directed by
Atom Egoyan, the Armenian Canadian director who's most famous for his films
The Sweet Hereafter and
Ararat. This film is essentially about identity and how Western culture makes you feel out of place sometimes if you don't fully embrace its values and denounce your roots when it conflicts with your new identity. Simon at first appears to accept whatever his grandfather told him about his father, but as the film progresses Simon and we discover the extent of reliability of that version of the story. What I understood from the film's ending is that the pressure that this new environment puts on its new residents to pick a side "you either with us or with them" would backfire most of the times, and that Western society needs to accept this complexity and learn from it, not merely tolerate it.
The acting is fine, nothing standout.
Scott Speedman plays Tom the uncle a quiet and unmotivated man who can't get by. It is a stretch role for the man who is known play the hunk cute guy (TV's
Felicity) or the hunk werewolf
(Underworld 1 and 2), but I think he did a modestly good job. The teacher Sabine is played by
Egoyan's wife and regular collaborator
Arsinée Khanjian, she plays an offbeat role of a woman with a hidden agenda but she plays it with subtlety in keeping with the film's tone. The kid who plays Simon,
Divon Bostick, carries the film. He has to play a precautious teenager who is wise and sad.
I credit
Egoyan as the writer and director of the film with making all his main characters 3-dimensional and complex even if they appear simple. The film is well structured, the story is revealed in layers which made it better in many ways, but it also a sign of a great indulgence from the filmmaker. This indulgence made the beginning of the film somewhat boring and repetitive. There is not an exciting character in the film and Simon who is the main protagonist is not your typical hero, and because we are thrown in the middle of the story without knowing what's going on it takes time for Simon and his story to hook you up and makes you interested. There is also the obligatory Holocaust reference which is getting really tired by now.
Anyway, it a solid drama that force you to think, but despite the tricks and whistles it tells a simple one moral and it is not hard to get. I give it
3.5/5.
