Adoration 2009

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Scott Speedman gives a piercing, intelligent performance. Read more

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: In Atom Egoyan's disconcerting and unpredictable Adoration, a young man's attempt to make sense of himself and his family's history turns strange when his re-imagined version of that history becomes a combustible topic for online chatter. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Under the violin swells of Mychael Danna's enveloping score, Egoyan weaves the personal, the political, and the technological into an immense yet intimate comment on our troubled times. In doing so, he stumbles back into relevance again. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Egoyan's pacing is careful, deliberate, as it must be, because he's pulling together a complex tale, playing with time to reveal details piece by piece. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: 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. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: When we look for illumination, all we find is chaos and darkness. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Because of the allegorical nature of its people, "Adoration" never fully brings them to life - especially, and most crucially, Simon and Sabine. They are mouthpieces before they are human beings. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Egoyan is nothing if not low key; and as dramatic as passages are here, he keeps the tone under control and the story believable. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Atom Egoyan's latest glum puzzle is a meditation on post-9/11 hysteria, but it's too much 'What's the meaning of terrorism?' cud chewing too late. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: After a promising start, this ambitious but ultimately clunky and unwieldy movie dissolves into a pile of ideas in dire need of dramatization. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Although the intent is clearly to keep us off balance as to what's real, it also unbalances the movie, hampering its ability to build suspense or involve us in its characters. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Adoration, which hinges on a number of coincidences, contains some really fine performances, including a surprising one from Canadian utility player Scott Speedman as the student's rough-hewn uncle and guardian. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: As for Mr. Egoyan, he remains an auteur at the highest level of cinematic creation, and even one of his lesser films, like Adoration, deserves to be seen. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: A gimmicky, sad and beautifully acted mystery that keeps its secrets even when it loses its grasp of the logical. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Egoyan's most affecting film since The Sweet Hereafter. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Why does Egoyan weave a tangled web? Because his characters are caught in it. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Whatever mystery is here is not a function of the story but of how Egoyan chooses to tell the story. Once all is revealed, the reaction is, 'So what?' Read more

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Bostick turns in a quietly mesmerizing performance, capturing Simon's sense of loss without slipping into pathos. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Though the plot borders on the abstruse, it's also the director's best film in a decade. Read more

Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail: Once again, Egoyan has created a film that descends from ideas rather than experience, driven by theme rather than character, and he does both very well. Read more

Bruce Demara, Toronto Star: Egoyan draws strong performances from the entire cast, including a solid performance from Scott Speedman, sporting a heavy beard, as the uncle raising the orphaned Simon, a sort of everyman embodying Western liberalism who is flawed by his own insularity. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: The time-jumping narrative and self-consciously somnambulant mood undermine the writer-director's zeitgeist-inspired thesis. Read more

Trevor Johnston, Time Out: Unfortunately the elaborately unspooled plot delivering these ideas in dramatic form is so scraggy and effortful it defeats the cast and rather compromises our involvement. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Moody, provocative and intellectually ambitious, Adoration is primed to elicit impassioned discussion among audiences. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: A fascinating muddle. Folding all sorts of post-9/11 questions into a very Egoyanesque miasma of elegantly fractured chronology and provocative ideas. Read more

Scott Foundas, Village Voice: A movie considerably more absorbing to talk, write, and think about afterward than it is to actually watch. Read more

Dan Zak, Washington Post: Adoration is a delicate rumination on how innocence and truth evolve in the aftermath of catastrophe, as people stake emotional ownership in tragedy. Read more