The Fundy Film Society

Adoration

Atom Egoyan’s latest film is a multipurpose mystery, family drama and exploration of ideas about cultural identity in the post-9/11 era. 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 Sami (Noam Jenkins), a luthier, crashed the family car, killing both himself and his wife /Simon’s mother Rachel (Rachel Blanchard), a gifted violinist, leaving Simon an orphan. Simon has always feared that the accident was intentional, an idea his maternal grandfather Morris (Kenneth Walsh) planted. Morris, who despised his Lebanese son-in-law, leads his grandson to believe Sami deliberately crashed the car that killed the boy’s mother, and Morris’s account has so tainted his grandson’s memory of his father, that it easy for the boy to imagine that he is the son of the couple in the news story. Simon reads his version to the class and then takes it to the Internet. In essence, he has created a false identity that 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.