Adoration (2008)

For his French-class assignment, a high school student weaves his family history in a news story involving terrorism, and goes on to invite an Internet audience in on the resulting controversy.

Director:

Atom Egoyan

Writer:

Atom Egoyan

Stars:

Devon Bostick, Rachel Blanchard, Louca Tassone

3 wins & 9 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Devon Bostick	...	Simon
Rachel Blanchard	...	Rachel
Louca Tassone	...	Young Simon
Kenneth Welsh	...	Morris
Yuval Daniel	...	Security Agent
Scott Speedman	...	Tom
Jeremy Wright	...	Delivery Guy
Arsinée Khanjian	...	Sabine
Noam Jenkins	...	Sami
Thomas Hauff	...	Nick
Martin Roach	...	Car Owner
Ieva Lucs	...	Berating Woman
Katie Boland	...	Hannah
Hailee Sisera	...	Jennifer
Lia Bellefontaine	...	Student On-Line

Storyline

Simon, a Toronto high school student, has been raised by his maternal Uncle Tom since Simon's parents, Rachel and Sami, died in a car accident eight years ago. Tom, a tow truck driver, decided to move to the city into Rachel's house and assume the mortgage, something he could ill afford, largely not to disrupt Simon's life, but equally to get away from his and Rachel's father, Morris, an openly bigoted man. That upbringing has made Tom a sullen and angry man. Morris only recently passed away. Rachel and Sami met when she, a violinist, brought her instrument in to be serviced, Sami the repairman. Simon now owns his mother's expensive violin, which Tom would like to sell to help pay the mortgage and Simon's imminent university tuition. One day at school, Simon's French teacher Sabine reads a French newspaper story from several years ago as a translation exercise for the class, the story about a pregnant woman traveling to Israel, her then boyfriend who, unknown to her, planted a bomb in...

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Plot Keywords:

internet | high school student | student | french class | controversy | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [United States]

Country:

Canada

Language:

English French Hebrew

Release Date:

24 April 2009 (Canada)

Also Known As:

Adoração

Filming Locations:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$4,700,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$39,358, 10 May 2009, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$293,614, 11 October 2009

Company Credits

Production Co:

Serendipity Point Films, ARP Sélection, Ego Film Arts

Technical Specs

Runtime:

101 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Ironically, for a movie about advancing technologies, Atom Egoyan deliberately shot Adoration (2008) on 35mm film stock.

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Goofs

In the scene at the end of the film at his grandfather's empty lake house, Simon first unloaded the wooden Christmas figures from his duffel bag onto a pile of firewood on the end of the dock. He then went into his grandfather's workshop and sawed the scroll off of his mother's violin. With his phone, he took a picture of the severed scroll in his hand with the dock in the background, but the wooden Christmas figures now appear in the middle of the dock.

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Quotes

Morris: When someone carries that kind of anger around all of the time, they can seem stupid. That's the thing about anger, it sucks up a lot of intelligence.

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Connections

Featured in The Rotten Tomatoes Show: Wolverine/Ghosts of Girlfriends Past/Battle for Terra (2009)

User Reviews

Controversial Film

Atom Egoyan is a very skilled filmmaker that is exploiting a stereotype of the older white person's racism against a Lebanese son in law. Old white people are easy to pick on, Hollywood routinely allows this because there is little criticism generated from it. Does that mean this is right? I don't think so.

The film implies that a group of people (older white people) are "monsters." Maybe Atom has experienced racism from white people because of his Egyptian father, I get the feeling that he hates me for being white and 54 years old. I give Atom a 10 for the skill in making this film, he gets a 0 for the subject.