‘Adore’ leaves a lot to be desired on DVD

Roz (Robin Wright) and Lil (Naomi Watts) are the best of friends, and have been since childhood growing up as neighbors in an idyllic beach town.  As adults, their teenage sons have developed a friendship as strong as that which binds their mothers.  One perfect summer the boys, along with their mothers, are confronted by the simmering emotions that have been mounting between them.  What follows is a film that aims to be provocative and taboo breaking, but falls far short of the mark.

The premise of two mothers who are best friends becoming lovers with each other’s sons sounds like it should be ripe for psychological exploration and some difficult questions. Adore though seems content to present sappy melodrama with little consequence and explanation put into the actions of the foursome. The script is poorly conceived, subjecting the film’s leads with some awful dialogue to portray. The film is filled with so many shots of longing stares into the distance that the audience can’t help but wonder if the actors were simply looking for something better to do.

Wright and Watts do the best with what they are given with this underdeveloped script, though at times in the film the pair just look plain bored and disinterested. Xavier Samuel’s Ian is written the depth and understanding of a petulant 2 year old and really gives Samuel no option but to play out the role as such. But as annoying as Samuel is here James Frecheville, the other part of this foursome, is just completely out of his depth and terrible here, his poor performance highlighted even more against veterans like Wright and Watts. If there is one person who manages to add some weight to the film it’s the strong performance from Ben Mendelsohn as Wright’s former husband.

Despite the salacious subject matter the biggest sin that Adore manages to perform is that it’s just boring and dull.  Even the sex scenes have little to no life attached to them. And with the DVD having no special features attached to it, there is very little to recommend this purchase other than the fact that most venues are reasonably priced. But if the price is the only drawing factor to buy the DVD, that’s like selling a film on the performance of the ex-husband supporting character and not the supposed racy and taboo sexually charged main story. Oh wait…….

Till Next Time

Movie Junkie TO

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