Adore
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Metascore
37

Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 24 Critics What's this?

User Score
4.6

Mixed or average reviews- based on 13 Ratings

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  • Summary: Naomi Watts and Robin Wright play two lifelong friends who fall for each other's sons.

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 24
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 24
  3. Negative: 11 out of 24
  1. The Guardian
    Reviewed by: Damon Wise
    Jun 27, 2013
    80
    An incredibly provocative piece of work, featuring a brave and vulnerable performance by Naomi Watts (who seems perhaps a little too young) and a career-high acting masterclass from Robin Wright (who is cast perfectly).
  2. Movie Nation
    Reviewed by: Roger Moore
    Sep 3, 2013
    63
    As edgy female wish-fulfillment fantasy, showing that fantasy’s consequences, Adore engrosses and engages, never titillates and never betrays even the tiniest hint of revulsion.
  3. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: Keith Uhlich
    Sep 3, 2013
    60
    You can barely stifle a laugh, and the way Wright and Watts deliver rote, morally searching dialogue with deer-in-the-headlights stoicism (“We’ve crossed a line,” Lil blankly notes) doesn’t help matters.
  4. The Dissolve
    Reviewed by: Mike D'Angelo
    Sep 4, 2013
    40
    Given the level of sophistication at which the movie operates, they might as well have called it Motherlover, after the Lonely Island video in which Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake sing about the exact same taboo foursome. The only significant difference is that the comedy in “Motherlover” is fully intentional.
  5. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    Sep 6, 2013
    37
    Adore at its core is a bore, nothing more.
  6. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: David Rooney
    Jun 28, 2013
    30
    Everything is spelled out literally and at a stultifying pace, in a story that might have worked onscreen as either heightened melodrama or farcical comedy. Instead Fontaine, who is not exactly blessed with a light touch, opts for misplaced sincerity.
  7. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Joe Neumaier
    Sep 5, 2013
    20
    Though Fontaine makes sure the beaches are sun-dappled and the women’s shared house comes off like a sandy paradise, the movie is like the early-’80s groaner “Summer Lovers” with wrinkle lines. Hooray for the freedom and beauty of older women — a demographic that deserves better than the deplorable Adore.

See all 24 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 5
  3. Negative: 1 out of 5
  1. foxgrove
    Oct 13, 2013
    9
    I have to say that I adored adore. It is a guilty pleasure that I'm sure would have made a good tv mini-series as it doesn't exhaust its own possibilities within the movie. Based on a short story by writer Doris Lessing it is easy to see why cynical highbrow critics would dismiss it as soap, and indeed many have panned it. I am at a loss to know why as it is intelligently adapted and written by Christopher Hampton and Anne Fontaine, who is also the film's director. In fact the writing is generally superb presenting some improbable situations in a natural and believable fashion. Some unintentional humour does creep in from time to time, but overall I was compelled to follow the story's arc. The performances are superb with Robin Wright the standout. Looking more and more like Jessica Lange, she is particularly moving. In scene after scene, many of which are filmed in extreme close up, every nuance of emotion is there to behold on her face. She is stunning here and I am tempted to say that it is the best I have ever seen this under rated actress. With its attractive cast and beautiful locations the film also looks great.… Expand
  2. jen01
    Sep 19, 2013
    9
    hot, hot, hot. Beautiful place, beautiful people. It was a sit back, relax and enjoy kind of movie. No violence. Sure it's a fantasy, but Isn't it a fantasy we are looking for movies?… Expand
  3. Trev29
    Sep 6, 2013
    6
    A movie about terrible narcissistic people living in a fantasy world of privileged isolation is actually not all that scandalous. The acting by the leading ladies is good and the photography and score are impressive. It is intriguing, but at the same time quite frivolous.… Expand
  4. csw12
    Sep 7, 2013
    4
    Adore manages to be many things like creepy, ludicrous, swallow but nothing can describe it better as a humorless boring melodrama in an isolated setting with nothing that inspires or intrigues. Nothing to see here besides the beautiful scenery. … Expand
  5. GreatMartin
    Sep 17, 2013
    2
    The first thing the movie “Adore” makes you want to do is book a flight to Seals Rock, New South Wales, Australia, to see the blue drenched wad waters, green mountains and hills, sun baked beaches and homes to die for, a Paradise on earth and the film does a good job of advertising the place and the surroundings.

    Lil (Naomi Watts) and Roz (Robin Wright) have been best friends from childhood and still are after each has been married, with Lil now a widow and Roz’s husband, Harold (Ben Mendelsohn) taking a job in Sidney expecting the family to join him. Lil has a son Ian (Xavier Samuel) and Roz a son, Tom (James Frecheville) both at the end of their teens ready to take their place in the world. In the sensual surroundings they live in, it is not long before each mother is having an affair with the other’s son.

    Based on a short story by Doris Lessing, and a screenplay written by Christopher Hampton, the latter doesn’t know quite how to get into the story and the director, Anne Fontaine, seems afraid to tell a 2013 story, instead making it a film that Todd Haynes would have told in the 1990s or Douglas Sirk in the 1950s, both who would have gone deeper into the ramifications. While there is no darkness in the film neither is there a light touch that could have made it more meaningful. We have come a long way from “The Graduate” and Mrs. Robinson but “Adore” is stuck in that era.

    The supporting players, such as Mendelson, a potential suitor her own age for Lil, Gary Sweet, and girlfriends for both boys played by Jessica Tovey, and Sophie Lowe, work hard but the writer and director don’t seem to take the circumstances seriously and the shock value is almost nil. It is stuck between the possibility of farce and how lives would be affected by the adults decisions.

    Watts, Wright, Samuel and Frecheville offer a lot of eye candy for both sexes and do the best they can with the material they are given.

    The film moves too slowly at points and should have been cut by 10-15 minutes but the work of the cinematographer Christophe Beaucarne is worth the price of admission. The city of Seal Rocks should give him surfing rights for his lifetime.    … Expand

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