X
- 2013
- R
- Exclusive Releasing
- 1 h 52 m
- 2013
- R
- Exclusive Releasing
- 1 h 52 m
Summary Naomi Watts and Robin Wright play two lifelong friends who fall for each other's sons.
Directed By: Anne Fontaine
Written By: Doris Lessing, Christopher Hampton, Anne Fontaine
- 2013
- R
- Exclusive Releasing
- 1 h 52 m
- 2013
- R
- Exclusive Releasing
- 1 h 52 m
Adore
37
5.8
Where to Watch
Summary Naomi Watts and Robin Wright play two lifelong friends who fall for each other's sons.
Directed By: Anne Fontaine
Written By: Doris Lessing, Christopher Hampton, Anne Fontaine
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 24 Critic Reviews
37
17% Positive
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
38% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
46% Negative
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 24 Critic Reviews
37
17% Positive
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
38% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
46% Negative
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
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).
It falls to Wright and Watts to shoulder the heavy lifting here, and they do so with as much grace as the plot will allow. Adore isn’t the feminist medication Fontaine probably means it to be, but it’s not the unintentional laugh riot it could have been in lesser hands, either.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 44 User Ratings
5.8
45% Positive
20 Ratings
20 Ratings
23% Mixed
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
32% Negative
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 44 User Ratings
5.8
45% Positive
20 Ratings
20 Ratings
23% Mixed
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
32% Negative
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
I enjoyed this move. However, Roz's son Tom was a blank canvas. Which made it hard to believe the relationship with Lil would last for years. Robin Wright and Xavier Samuel characters- very sexy and passionate. Xavier Samuel is beautiful!
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What woman , who is honest, would not want to be in this situation?? Sexy, passionate and intense. It makes you think about the different personalities of people Of how some are so much more emotionally involved and others are in much more control. The purpose of life is to love and be loved. This movie is indeed a guilty pleasure in more ways than one.
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Trying to be provocative with a capital "P," Anne Fontaine's Adore undermines itself by provoking unintended laughs.
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.
Adore at its core is a bore, nothing more.
A ludicrous melodrama that begs to be handled as an over-the-top sex farce is instead treated with the solemnity of a wake, albeit one with a rather lenient dress code.
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.
An excellent movie. It's full of temptation, passion, guilt, innocence, confusion and love. I don't know what the big fuss is about age differences. Everyone in it was of legal age. I adored this movie.
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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.
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Sort of anti-climatic. Of all the movies there are made...I feel it's easy to pick this one out as a waste and rather could have stayed a book, but it is unique at least. The subject matter was handled in a way that expanded past the major issue and explored a "what if?" situation in a hopeful light about lasting friendship, though strange.
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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 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.
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Production Company
Gaumont,
Screen Australia,
Ciné@,
Hopscotch Features,
Mon Voisin Productions,
France 2 Cinéma,
Screen NSW,
France Télévisions,
Canal+,
Ciné+
Release Date Sep 6, 2013
Duration 1 h 52 m
Rating R
Awards
Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Awards
• 3 Nominations
Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Australian Film Critics Association Awards
• 1 Nomination
