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Blu-ray Review

Adoration

Official Synopsis:

What would you do if you found out your father may have been a terrorist? A high school boy writes a story for class that makes this claim. Is it true? Friends, family, teachers and internet chat-room partners start to wonder and worry. Now he must journey through a maze of family secrets to find the truth about his dead father. From Academy Award®-nominated director Atom Egoyan (1997, Best Director, The Sweet Hereafter) comes a story of a young man who must question everything he knows in order to learn who he is and who his father was. Adoration presents a world where there is no such thing as us versus them and the truth is never as simple as right and wrong.

Our Take:

The official synopsis above, while possibly helpful in selling an extra disc or two, is flat out inaccurate. It is not a spoiler whatsoever that the protagonist’s father is not a terrorist. The entire point of the movie is that the boy pretending his father was a terrorist and keeping up the charade as a dramatic work challenges others in how they perceive “us vs. them” in a world that suddenly hits more at home. That is the point of Atom Egoyan’s latest film, Adoration.

Egoyan uses the premise to explore issues of race relations among people. The way students react to the protagonist’s claim and stories is what is important. Adoration is like cinematic trolling. A troll is an internet user that enters a message board discussion with the sole intention of derailing it by drawing the extreme ire of some stranger in front of a screen far away. The dramatic exercise in the film is similar to that. Our protagonist, high school student Simon, keeps up the charade, saying more and more outlandish things as he tries to rationalize the terrorist actions of his fake father.

That is one fragment of this “we’re all connected somehow” narrative. Another concerns the drama teacher at Simon’s school that pushes him to do this. The real mystery in the film lies not with Simon discovering truths about his father, but the drama teacher’s motivations. If it were just left that she was an odd woman or felt that the project had artistic worth, I would have been happier. The twist concerning her role in the story comes later and feels entirely tacked on.

The third fragment actually does concern Simon’s real family life. We see him capturing video on his cell phone of his dying grandfather in the beginning of the movie. Then we find out that he lives with his uncle. His actual parents were killed in a car accident when he was a small child, and his racist grandfather blamed his Middle Eastern father who was driving the car for the accident and killing his daughter. So, while not a terrorist by any stretch of the imagination, Simon was taught to hate his deceased father growing up by his grandfather. This is never fully explored because so much of the film focuses on Simon’s pretend issues with his imaginary father. Nevertheless, Egoyan provides closure in this area as well, as he made a point to neatly tie up the loose ends of his frayed narrative.

Adoration wants to say a lot about the nature of communication in the internet age. While Egoyan uses not-yet common multiple real time video feed chat rooms to illustrate communication over the internet, it might as well have been people typing on a message board. That information of Simon’s project was able to extend so far so fast and that so many people took such a personal stance about something over the internet that did not affect their daily lives was an interesting phenomena to riff off of. Unfortunately, Egoyan has other plotlines to explore and does not delve too deeply into this aspect of the film, which to me was the most interesting.

Audio & Video:

Sony Pictures Classics has presented Adoration in its typical AV package of a 1080p AVC MPEG-4 encode and lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track.

Both serve the film well. The video transfer is strong throughout with fine detail being ever present. There is no evidence of digital enhancement via DNR or edge enhancement to be found on the disc. While Egoyan’s natural shooting style does not provide for any stand out reference level sequences, this is a very balanced and consistently good transfer.

Adoration is a dialogue driven film and with all the participants in the video chat rooms sometimes talking at once, so dialogue clarity is of utmost importance. This disc’s mix handles it all well. Dialogue is always neatly separated and clearly delivered. Subtle sounds such as metal clings and clangs are easily discernable. Save for one poignant moment in the film, your bass and speakers will not be blaring.

Special Features (Blu-ray Exclusive):

Sony crams the disc with enough Egoyan interview footage to allow him to get you excited about Adoration. Unfortunately, listening to him discuss the film is far more interesting than the film itself.

The Fabulous Picture Show (14 minutes) – An interview with Atom Egoyan presented in high definition.

Special Features (Standard):

The Making of Adoration (12 minutes)
Interview with Atom Egoyan (23 minutes) – Far more interesting that Adoration itself
The Violin Shop (9 minutes) – A featurette focusing on the making of a particular shot in the film.
Take Three (20 minutes) – Mock web cam interviews in character.
Passengers (20 minutes) – Mock web cam interviews in character.
Deleted Scenes (7 minutes)
Theatrical Trailer

Conclusion:

Adoration might have something interesting to say and Atom Egoyan has a ton of interesting things to say while discussing the film, but he fails to say those things through Adoration. Egoyan’s seeming ambition to explore communication and advancing technology through the film felt like a mere afterthought in a film filled with too many too convenient interconnected plot lines to make its point.

Overall Picture:

Movie: B-
Video: A-
Audio: B+
Extra Features: B+

- Matthew Orlando
Staff Writer