Adoration | Telescope Film
Adoration

Adoration

Critic Rating

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In this drama, high school student Simon pretends a news story about a terrorist plot is part of his own complicated family history — at the behest of his overzealous French teacher. When his tragic tale makes it to the internet, he faces both controversy and consequences.

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What are critics saying?

90

The New York Times by Stephen Holden

A profound and provocative exploration of cultural inheritance, communications technology and the roots and morality of terrorism, the Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan nimbly wades into an ideological minefield without detonating an explosion.

88

USA Today by Claudia Puig

Moody, provocative and intellectually ambitious, Adoration is primed to elicit impassioned discussion among audiences.

83

The A.V. Club by Scott Tobias

At a minimum, his new film, Adoration, marks a welcome return to the Egoyan of old, the one who could spin seductive mysteries out of disassembled parts and show how images can be manipulated into comforting lies.

80

The Hollywood Reporter by Ray Bennett

Shot on beautifully utilized film but employing images vividly from the Internet and mobile phones, it's an examination of the power that false ideas may have on people's imagination and beliefs when they are repeated over and over.

75

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Liam Lacey

Though there are moments when the drama turns into intellectual debate, the film is also emotional, moving with a fluid, mounting tension and moments of anguish and strange, startling humour.

75

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

Some viewers may find the film confusing; I found it absorbing.

75

Philadelphia Inquirer by Carrie Rickey

Adoration, Egoyan's most affecting film since "The Sweet Hereafter."

70

Variety by Justin Chang

This ambitious think-piece ultimately smothers its good intentions in didactic revelations, earnest pleading and incessant violin music. Engrossing nonetheless, the story of a high schooler troubled by his parents' legacy reps one of the Canadian writer-director's most accessible efforts.

70

Chicago Reader by J.R. Jones

Scott Speedman gives a piercing, intelligent performance.

67

Austin Chronicle by Marjorie Baumgarten

Egoyan’s return to form is welcome, nevertheless Adoration adds up to less than we might have hoped for

63

Boston Globe by Ty Burr

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.

63

New York Post by Lou Lumenick

Adoration, which hinges on a number of coincidences, contains some really fine performances.

60

Village Voice

The end result is a movie considerably more absorbing to talk, write, and think about afterward than it is to actually watch.

50

Los Angeles Times

There is always a risk with having such a singular focus on a single theme; you might wake up to find the walls of that favored niche are closing in on you. And that is where we find Egoyan in Adoration.

50

Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman

The upshot is that those who appear to be guilty may not be -- a muddled message for our time.