Adore

Cast of Characters:

Lil - Naomi Watts

Roz - Robin Wright

Ian - Xavier Samuel

Tom - James Frecheville

Hannah - Sophie Lowe

Mary - Jessica Tovey

Harold - Ben Mendelsohn

Director - Anne Fontaine

Screenplay - Christopher Hampton

Based on the novel The Grandmothers by Doris Lessing

Rated R for sexual content and language

      Academy Award nominees Naomi Watts and Robin Wright get their cougar on in Adore. Man, being in a strictly physical relationship with them clearly must've sucked for those two boys.

      In New South Wales, Roz (Robin Wright), her husband Harold (Ben Mendelsohn) and their son Tom (James Frecheville) live near the beach. Lil (Naomi Watts), a widow who has been lifelong friends with Roz, lives nearby with her son Ian (Xavier Samuel). Like their mothers, Tom and Ian are also best friends. Harold applies for and is offered a job in Sydney without telling Roz, expecting her to move to Sydney with him. Roz is naturally hesitant as she has lived where she is her whole life and finds the sudden change rather unexpected.

      Things grow more complicated the moment Roz starts a sexual relationship with Ian. Upon discovering this, Tom takes revenge by initiating a sexual relationship with Lil. At first there's a little bit of tension between the mothers and their sons, but the more they continue on with their relationships, the harder they find it to stop.

      Obviously, a film dealing with this type of subject matter - two mothers involved in a sexual relationship with each other's son - has to be handled just right. In the hands of a great writer it could have, but here the writing winds up being the weakest element of the film. It's not just the dialogue, which at times is almost cringeworthy ("They're like... gods!"), it's the way writer Christopher Hampton handles the outcome of this delicate situation. While, to be fair, Hampton and director Anne Fontaine don't completely let the characters off the hook (something The Lifeguard, involving a thirty year old girl with a sixteen year old high schooler, completely failed to do) the moments that require the most tension just wind up flat. You would think that upon finding out about each other, the two mothers' first conversation would be just a tad bit more heated than what we get, which boils down to, "Well, it seems weird... but I don't wanna stop." "Yep, neither do I." "Well, okay then." I mean, the thought of one of my closest friends hooking up with my mom makes me wanna black out into a seizure, and on the flip side, if I had a daughter hooking up with one of my closest friends, I'd wanna blow his brains out. Then again you wonder how exactly can the mothers switch on into "Mama Bear" mode anyway when it seems that their relationship here with their own sons tend to come off just as playful. I'm not saying beat them over the head with the preaching hammer, but a little bit more tension and passion than what we get not only would've benefited the film, it would've seemed more realistic. We do eventually get a climatic turning point moment near the end that makes the viewer go "Yeah, they should've pulled the plug there." However, it's basically reduced to one scene and leads to a consequence that come the final shot of the film made me wonder if they even cared about what just happened.

      It's a shame that such a talented cast is wasted on such a weak script as this one. Naomi Watts is one of my personal favorite actresses (if you haven't seen 2012's The Impossible, do so) and she, along with Wright and the underrated character actor Ben Mendelsohn (who has the strongest moments of the film whenever he's onscreen), sell it as best as they can. It's quite a tricky feat to do when you're dealing with some hokey dialogue at times. That said, not even those three, as good as they are here, can save this film entirely. When you're dealing with a complicated situation like what you have here, you want something more than the simplistic and absurd way Hampton handles these characters. I give Adore a C- (★★).