Adoration explores the aftermath of a public disaster (1)

In his best-known, most acclaimed film The Sweet Hereafter, Canadian director Atom Egoyan examined the emotional devastation of a school bus crash that claimed the lives of more than a dozen children in a small town. Rather than offer a straightforward study of grief, Egoyan approached the accident from oblique angles and fragmented time periods to provide a more complex account of a tragedy’s emotional consequences.

For Adoration, Egoyan takes an even more elliptical look at a public disaster. Simon (Devon Bostick), an orphaned Canadian teenager, delivers a personal account of his parents’ involvement in an act of attempted terrorism before he was born. His French teacher Sabine (Egoyan’s wife and frequent leading lady Arsinée Khanjian) encourages Simon to further develop the piece, which soon becomes a flashpoint of Internet forums. Through webcams, Simon, his friends and even survivors of terrorism argue such points as “What’s so seductive about being a victim?”

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(Photo Sophie Giraud/Sony Pictures Classics)