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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Egoyan's intimate drama a good lie that tells the truth

By: Randall King

Posted: 09/4/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

IF Arsinée Khanjian and a young man with a camcorder are present, can Atom Egoyan be far behind?

No, both those elements are present and accounted for in Adoration, a return to intimate form for Toronto director Egoyan, following his flirtation with the more mainstream melodrama model of Where the Truth Lies.

The young man with the camcorder is Simon (Devon Bostick), the orphaned son of a long-deceased couple. As the film begins, Simon recalls how his Palestinian father Sami (Noam Jenkins) participated in a failed plot to blow up an Israel-bound aircraft using his mother (Rachel Blanchard) as a bomb mule, even as she was pregnant with Simon.

That story turns out to be an invention, cooked up between Simon and his French teacher Sabine (Arsinée Khanjian), who encourages Simon to transform an old news story into a drama.

But the story takes on a life of its own when it is passed off as truth in Internet chat rooms, where skinheads and traumatized Jewish survivors of that would-be bombed flight sound off to the provocative questions raised by Simon.

And as Simon's reticent uncle Tom (Scott Speedman) gets involved, the link between the story and Simon's tragic family past lead to the discovery of another lie, told with more malevolent intent, involving Simon's also-deceased grandfather (Kenneth Welsh).

Good drama has been defined as a lie that tells the truth, and Egoyan's drama demonstrates that point in action, even as the story refracts through myriad forms in its quest for solid narrative ground.

Egoyan takes us on a circuitous route that may challenge less patient audiences, but be assured he does arrive at a satisfying conclusion for these characters.

And if I joke about Arsinée Khanjian's inevitable place in an Atom Egoyan movie, I kid because I love. Even in stillness, Khanjian has more gravitas and more presence than most Hollywood stars could muster if their lives depended on it.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

MovieReview

Adoration

. Starring Scott Speedman and Arsinée

Khanjian

. Cinematheque

. 14A

3 1/2 out of five

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 4, 2009 D4

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