A bunch of trailers seemed to leak around Thanksgiving. Bad time to release them people. The latest is/was Atom Egoyan’s “Adoration,” a film that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, but one we unfortunately missed. The film’s synopsis, but the long and the short of it is a teenager (Devon Bostick) who reinvents himself on the Internet by recreating his life around two historical figures, which sparks a lot of extreme reactions.
ADORATION speaks to our connections-with each other, with our family history, with technology and with the modern world. Sabine (ARSINÉE KHANJIAN), a high school French teacher, gives her class a translation exercise based on a real news story about a terrorist who plants a bomb in the airline luggage of his pregnant girlfriend. The assignment has a profound effect on one student, Simon (DEVON BOSTICK), who lives with his uncle (SCOTT SPEEDMAN). In the course of translating, Simon re-imagines that the news item is his own family’s story, with the terrorist standing in for his father. Years ago, Simon’s father (NOAM JENKINS) crashed the family car, killing both himself and his wife (RACHEL BLANCHARD), making Simon an orphan. Simon has always feared that the accident was intentional. Simon reads his version to the class and then takes it to the Internet. In essence, he has created a false identity which allows him to probe his family secret. As Simon uses his new persona to journey deeper into his past, the public reaction is swift and strong. Then an exotic woman reveals her true identity. The truth about Simon’s family emerges. The mystery is solved and a new family is formed.
The film stars Rachel Blanchard, Scott Speedman, and newcomer Devon Bostick and we must admit if it weren’t for Egoyan, we might not be interested in this one (Blanchard doesn’t seem like an actress that can carry an entire film, let alone an entire drama). It sounds like some typically heady stuff by Egoyan (a cerebralist who loves to explore issues of identity), but we’d be willing to give it a shot when the time comes, though it sounds like a tough sell. “Adoration” is slated for a limited release on May 8, 2009. You’re ‘what if’ for the day: Scott Speedman almost starred in a short we were writing/directing during our (my) film school days. He was new and totally willing, but it did not come to pass. Shoulda, woulda, could, right?
It’s such a lame movie.