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Adoration
Metascore
64 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 20 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 20
  3. Negative: 0 out of 20
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  1. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    90
    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.
  2. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    88
    Moody, provocative and intellectually ambitious, Adoration is primed to elicit impassioned discussion among audiences.
  3. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    83
    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.
  4. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Ray Bennett
    80
    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.
  5. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    75
    Some viewers may find the film confusing; I found it absorbing.
  6. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    75
    Adoration, Egoyan's most affecting film since "The Sweet Hereafter."
  7. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Liam Lacey
    75
    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.
  8. Variety
    Reviewed by: Justin Chang
    70
    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.
  9. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    70
    Scott Speedman gives a piercing, intelligent performance.
  10. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    67
    Egoyan's return to form is welcome, nevertheless Adoration adds up to less than we might have hoped for
  11. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    63
    Adoration, which hinges on a number of coincidences, contains some really fine performances.
  12. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    63
    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.
  13. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Scott Foundas
    60
    The end result is a movie considerably more absorbing to talk, write, and think about afterward than it is to actually watch.
  14. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Marc Mohan
    58
    Once all the pieces of the story are assembled, the whole thing turns out to be not that big of a deal.
  15. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    50
    After a promising start, this ambitious but ultimately clunky and unwieldy movie dissolves into a pile of ideas in dire need of dramatization.
  16. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    50
    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.
  17. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    50
    The upshot is that those who appear to be guilty may not be -- a muddled message for our time.
  18. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Betsy Sharkey
    50
    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.
  19. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Dan Zak
    50
    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).
  20. Empire
    Reviewed by: Alan Morrison
    40
    Despite strong turns, it feels little more than an Egoyan lecture on Serious Stuff; lots to talk about, little to enjoy.
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