Adoration

The latest from writer/director Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter) is an interesting mystery that could’ve been better had he not cast his wife, Arsinée Khanjian, as a teacher with strange intentions. Khanjian is a little stiff as Sabine, a schoolteacher who inspires a student (Devon Bostick, also a little stiff) to dramatize a tragic story about his family. The boy takes his story to the Internet, and things get out of control. Scott Speedman is excellent as the boy’s uncle, left to raise him after his parents died under mysterious circumstances. Egoyan gets a little carried away with the complexity of his mystery, but his storytelling is intriguing, and he keeps the proceedings worth watching, even when the whole thing seems rather impossible. This is almost a return to form for Egoyan, who stumbled a bit with the strange Where the Truth Lies.