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Adoration

EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics

Adoration reviews
65
5.2 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 19 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 5 votes
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama

Written by: Atom Egoyan

Directed by: Atom Egoyan

Release Date:
Theatrical: May 8, 2009
DVD: October 13, 2009

Running Time: 100 minutes, Color

Origin: Canada

Summary

RATING: R for language

Starring Arsinee Khanjian, Scott Speedman, Rachel Blanchard, and Devon Bostick

Sabine, a high school French teacher, gives her class a translation exercise based on a real news story about a terrorist who plants a bomb in the airline luggage of his pregnant girlfriend. The assignment has a profound effect on one student, Simon, who lives with his uncle. In the course of translating, Simon re-imagines that the news item is his own family's story, with the terrorist standing in for his father. Years ago, Simon's father crashed the family car, killing both himself and his wife, making Simon an orphan. Simon has always feared that the accident was intentional. Simon reads his version to the class and then takes it to the Internet. In essence, he has created a false identity which allows him to probe his family secret. As Simon uses his new persona to journey deeper into his past, the public reaction is swift and strong. Then an exotic woman reveals her true identity. The truth about Simon's family emerges. The mystery is solved and a new family is formed. (Sony Classics)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

90

The New York Times Stephen Holden

A profound and provocative exploration of cultural inheritance, communications technology and the roots and morality of terrorism, the Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan nimbly wades into an ideological minefield without detonating an explosion.

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88

USA Today Claudia Puig

Moody, provocative and intellectually ambitious, Adoration is primed to elicit impassioned discussion among audiences.

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83

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

At a minimum, his new film, Adoration, marks a welcome return to the Egoyan of old, the one who could spin seductive mysteries out of disassembled parts and show how images can be manipulated into comforting lies.

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80

The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett

Shot on beautifully utilized film but employing images vividly from the Internet and mobile phones, it's an examination of the power that false ideas may have on people's imagination and beliefs when they are repeated over and over.

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75

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Though there are moments when the drama turns into intellectual debate, the film is also emotional, moving with a fluid, mounting tension and moments of anguish and strange, startling humour.

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75

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Some viewers may find the film confusing; I found it absorbing.

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75

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Adoration, Egoyan's most affecting film since "The Sweet Hereafter."

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70

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Scott Speedman gives a piercing, intelligent performance.

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70

Variety Justin Chang

This ambitious think-piece ultimately smothers its good intentions in didactic revelations, earnest pleading and incessant violin music. Engrossing nonetheless, the story of a high schooler troubled by his parents' legacy reps one of the Canadian writer-director's most accessible efforts.

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67

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Egoyan’s return to form is welcome, nevertheless Adoration adds up to less than we might have hoped for

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63

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Adoration, which hinges on a number of coincidences, contains some really fine performances.

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63

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Watching Adoration is like juggling three tennis balls, a porcupine, and a graduate thesis, but eventually it finds a unifying theme, that of tolerance melting away racial and intergenerational hatreds.

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60

Village Voice Scott Foundas

The end result is a movie considerably more absorbing to talk, write, and think about afterward than it is to actually watch.

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58

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

Once all the pieces of the story are assembled, the whole thing turns out to be not that big of a deal.

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50

Washington Post Dan Zak

The complex story structure teeters between the revelatory and the absurd, depending on how much you buy the irritating-then-intriguing performance by Arsine Khanjian (Egoyan's wife, the Armenian-Canadian actor).

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50

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

After a promising start, this ambitious but ultimately clunky and unwieldy movie dissolves into a pile of ideas in dire need of dramatization.

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50

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Adoration, despite a family resemblance to some of his finest work ("The Sweet Hereafter," "Ararat"), is Egoyan at his worst. The movie is slow and airless, with a script so weak one wonders why Egoyan bothered to film it.

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50

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The upshot is that those who appear to be guilty may not be -- a muddled message for our time.

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50

Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey

There is always a risk with having such a singular focus on a single theme; you might wake up to find the walls of that favored niche are closing in on you. And that is where we find Egoyan in Adoration.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 5.2 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

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