Adore 2013

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Ms. Wright and Ms. Watts address their roles with skill and conviction, but this has the effect of making the story seem even more fanciful and absurd. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: I have no idea why such strapping young men would be so desperate for sex as to hook up with a couple of museum artifacts they've known all their lives, but this hokey soap views contrivance as a small price to pay for lush mommy fantasy. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Watts and Wright movingly convey their characters' journeys: caught up in new, reckless love; frightened by the passage of years; determined to hide within an envelope of stolen time and a fantasy that can't last. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: An impeccably tasteful picture about some awfully tasteless decisions. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, AV Club: The setup promises more intrigue than the film ultimately delivers. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: That the mothers are played by Robin Wright and Naomi Watts is really the only thing that makes the movie something more than an unintentional comedy. Read more

Tom Russo, Boston Globe: Cast actresses with the skills that Naomi Watts and Robin Wright bring, give their obliviously icky story some arthouse visual lyricism, and you've got "Adore." Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: What's shocking here is how not shocking all this is. Watts and Wright provide interesting portraits of two friends who really do appear to have an unconditional fondness for each other. They make the unfathomable believable -- almost. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Astonishingly, Wright and Watts sell their characters - the yearning, the bond, the inevitable wrong ahead. But "Adore" remains too much of a stretch. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Adore has the distinction of featuring some of the most laughable dialogue in any movie this year. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: Would Fontaine have made this film if the mothers looked like and were as old as Barbra Streisand and Kathy Bates and the sons weren't built like surfers? Of course not. Read more

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: Despite her accomplished cast, French director Anne Fontaine summons neither the dramatic heft nor the humor to put across this absurd forbidden-love scenario. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: It's a challenging film, but maybe not as challenging as it should be. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: This isn't an Oedipus complex. This is a Preposterous complex. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: The film has an impressive pedigree -- screenplay by Christopher Hampton, from a novel by Nobel laureate Doris Lessing -- but still feels like something of a bodice-ripper, if people bothered to wear that much clothing. Read more

Ella Taylor, NPR: Seems downright desperate to wave [Fontaine's] fetish for "illicit" desire under our noses without having much to say about it. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: [An] embarrassingly breathless portrayal of middle-aged crazy. Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: This story of two dynamite Australian moms falling in love with each other's surfer-god sons is sensuous and gorgeous but also strained and opaque. Read more

Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com: Adore is, as my late mother would say in describing Sidney Sheldon novels, good trash. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: At Sundance, where the first showing was nearly laughed off the screen, Adore, based on a Doris Lessing novella, was known as Two Mothers. You should know it as something to avoid. Read more

Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle: It's even hard to simply enjoy the performances of the two stars, who give more that the film deserves. Read more

Johanna Schneller, Globe and Mail: Outre love stories are great, as are love stories that make viewers squirm. But they have to ring true emotionally, and despite its talented cast, Adore does not. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: There's an undeniable "ick" factor to this film that overwhelms the justifiable cougar angle. Even worse is the boredom that soon sets in. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: An exceedingly silly, sun-baked sex movie, the kind of import that adds just enough brains to its genitals to get into U.S. arthouses. (In the '70s, the mothers would have been played by Laura Antonelli and Sylvia Kristel.) Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: With its soap-operatic performances, bonkbuster plotline and sparkling seafront setting, all 'Adore' really lacks is a cameo from Alf Stewart Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: 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. Read more

John Oursler, Village Voice: The disparity between the inherently trashy appeal of the story and the self-serious way it's presented cripples much of the potential for enjoyment. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: Adore wants it both ways. It asks not to be judged by standards of realism, but then tries to inject realism and naturalism into its absurdist narrative. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: "Adore" at its core is a bore, nothing more. Read more