ADORE (Anne Fontaine). 111 minutes. Opens Friday (September 6). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NN
Robin Wright and Naomi Watts star as Roz and Lil, best friends who get sexually involved with each other’s adult sons. Sound creepy? It is.
Set in a sleepy seaside town in Australia, it’s also very beautiful. I finally gave up on figuring out who to root for and just kept wishing I could have one of their beachside homes.
The dialogue is surprisingly pedestrian, given that it’s by Christopher Hampton. “Are you all right?” the mothers ask the hunky sons (Xavier Samuel and James Frecheville) at least four times. “Yeah,” they lie, mopily.
But though it’s based on a short story by Doris Lessing, the narrative fails even more miserably. It depends on the characters inhabiting a hermetically sealed environment. They carry on their unconventional affairs for a full three years. Lil’s husband has died, and Roz’s is teaching in Sydney, but doesn’t anybody else notice? Where is their community? Roz works in a gallery Liz sells yachts. Don’t the boys have any friends? They live in a small town, but its not a rural outpost where absolutely no one’s around.
I’m with Roz’s husband (Ben Mendelsohn), who wonders why Roz and Lil aren’t sleeping with each other.
