Starring: Naomi Watts, Robin Wright, Xavier Samuel, James Frecheville, Ben Mendelsohn, Gary Sweet, Jessica Tovey, Sophie Lowe
Distributor: Hopscotch Films
Runtime: 111 mins. Reviewed in Nov 2013
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It was too good a phrase not to use: a reviewer-friend remarked at the end of Adoration, “a film of vexatious morality”.
Indeed, the film is a story which raises moral issues. It is too easy and glib simply to note the tagline of two women falling in love with each other’s teenage sons. This is something of what the film is about but does not indicate anything of how the subject is treated. A number of audiences have found the film very romantic. Others have worried about the relationships, the effect on each of the characters, and some have worried about the closeness of the friendships and relationships, even suggesting overtones of incest.
The title of the film, Adoration (previously, Adore) is suggestive of how, during the relationships, each partner sees the other. However, the original title of the film was To Mothers and, indeed, the original title of Doris Lessing’s story is To Grandmothers. Doris Lessing, in her stories, often set in Africa, and was not afraid to tackle troubling situations. Hence, the interest in exploring the characters, friendship, affairs of the two grandmothers.
While the director is French, Anne Fontaine, the adaptation of Doris Lessing’s novel comes from noted British playwright and screen-writer, Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons). And the setting has been adapted for Australia, the central coast of New South Wales, filmed at Seal Rocks, a beautiful ocean location with beaches and cliffs, the atmosphere of a small town.
We are introduced to the two mothers when they are children, playing in the bush and on the beach, on the verge of puberty. We are made aware of the strong bonds between the two, sharing everything, the best of friends. As they look at each other, there is a visual transition to them as grown-up, as mothers, attending the funeral of the husband of one of them. As with the mothers, their two sons formed strong friendships and bonds, the best of friends. And, the same visual change is used to bring the boys to their late teenage years. Still best friends, surfing, in and out of each other’s houses, ordinary situations. But, there is some tension in one household as a marriage seems to have gone cold, the husband wanting to move to Sydney, to teach at Sydney University, his wife seemingly willing, but this being the last bond being cut, he moves away.
It seems best to mention here the strength of the performances. Naomi Watts, perhaps a bit more subdued than in her other performances, is Lil, whose son is Ian (Xavier Samuel). Robin Wright is Roz whose son is Tom (James Frecheville). Ben Mendelsohn is Roz’s husband who moves out. While the performances are strong, Robin Wright’s portrayal of Roz stands out, a complex portrait of a middle-aged woman and her profound emotions.
It is in this context that Ian makes an approach to Roz, Tom resentful when he finds out what has happened, approaches Lil. It is here that many audiences become uncomfortable, though some are asking would the audience be so questioning had the genders been reversed, the younger women approaching the older men. It is still rather unusual to have the younger men approach the older women and to want a relationship rather than merely an affair.
But the film makes a move to two years after the beginnings of the affairs. Which gives the film some more substance, on how each of the couples handles the situation, well or not well. There are further complications when Tom goes to Sydney, to work with his father, meets an aspiring actress and all four have to take stock of their situation.
And the complications do not stop there because each of the young men does marry, and has to face whether the marriage is substantial or the initial love is still all-pervasive.
Stories are able to take us into areas which may not be familiar, to characters faced with moral dilemmas, who do not look to the consequences at the time but are capable of being particularly hurtful. And, Adoration leaves us with these questions.
Fr Peter Malone msc
Not to be confused with the 2009 Canadian film of the same name by Atom Egoyan, this film is an erotic drama about two mothers who have affairs with each other’s sons. The film is an Australian-French production that was shot around Seal Rocks in NSW, and has been screened on the International Film circuit. It is based on a screenplay by Oscar winner, Christopher Hampton, who was responsible for the film adaptation of Ian McEwan’s “Atonement” (2007), and is based loosely on Doris Lessing’s short novel,” The Grandmothers”, published in 2003.
Two women, who have been best friends since childhood, Roz (Robin Wright) and Lil (Naomi Watts) lie side by side on a pristine beach in Northern NSW watching their teenage sons enjoying their time surfing. They have managed art galleries and yachting companies and are both professional, competent women in what they have achieved. Most importantly, they have been friends for life, and they feel very much at ease in idly discussing the attractiveness and the physicality of the young men surfing in front of them. But more is at stake than just conversation.
Lil’s son is Ian (Xavier Samuel) and Roz’s son is Tom (James Frecheville). Tom learns that his mother has had a passionate one-night stand with his best friend, Ian. He tells Ian’s mother, Lil, about it and decides to take revenge against his friend by seducing her. Tom’s affair with Ian’s mother is both a way of getting back at his friend, but also a way of wounding his own mother, who, he thinks, has betrayed him. The original motives are lost, however, as the attachments between those involved grow in intensity as the film progresses.
The film impacts on viewers at two levels. Made by a female director, it is about the psychological interaction of two mature women, and explores their unconscious in a provocative way. Lil is widowed, and Roz is married unhappily to an Australian academic (Ben Mendelsohn), who has decided to work in Sydney. The film shows Lil and Roz as attractive women, struggling with the threat of approaching years, both being tempted sexually by what each (and society) would regard as forbidden fruit. At another level, it explores in an intense and personal way, the erotic attraction between two nubile teenagers driven by awakening sexual desire and two desirable women caught emotionally in a situation which they have encouraged for different reasons.
The result is a controversial movie that explores the personal psyches of adults and teenagers, who choose to behave irresponsibly. The film shows the change in the friendship between Roz and Lil, and reveals what happens when sexual desire starts to rule the lives of four people. Naomi Watts plays her role fearlessly and gives an intensely personal performance, as she has done in other movies (like “The Impossible”, 2012; and more daringly, in “Funny Games”, 2007)). Her immoral actions, as also those of Roz, change the way the two women relate to each other and to their sons. All four are emotionally scarred by what occurred, and know that their interactions with each other will never be the same. Roz and Lil play unsuccessfully at being “grandmothers” to their sons’ children, until passion intrudes again.
This is a film full of sensuality, and immoral desire, and is a compelling tale of misguided attraction. The tone of the movie is coherently languid and sensual throughout and the acting and photography are excellent, but the film plays very loosely with the complexities of family loyalty, conventional morality, and the rules of normal emotional attachment.
This movie is definitely not recommended for the unwary. “Adoration” is a misleading word for describing any of the relationships depicted in this dramatically intense, and absorbing film.
Mr Peter W Sheehan
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