Adoration brings us a different kind of sexual fantasy because it’s one for ‘cougars”!
In a completely different story from her 2009 hit Coco Avant Chanel, French film maker Anne Fontaine makes her English film debut with Adoration. Based on Doris Learing’s novella The Grandmothers, (which she claimed was based on a true story) the screenplay is by Christopher Hampton, who won an Oscar in 1989 for his script of Dangerous Liaisons.
Lil (Naomi Watts) and Roz (Robin Wright) are best friends who have grown up together on the stunning beaches of New South Wales. Their bond is strengthened when they give birth to sons in the same year. Naturally the boys Ian (Xavier Samuel from The Twighlight Saga: Eclipse 2010) and Tom (James Frecheville from Animal Kingdom 2010) grow up together as surfing buddies and best friends like their mothers.
Lily’s husband dies and Roz’s husband Harold (brilliantly played by Ben Mendelson) moves to Sydney for a new job, so the mothers and their sons are left alone.
Each boy gets sexually involved with the other’s mother and it is not long before these illicit affairs develop into pretty full-on relationships (I felt like I was watching The Bold and the Beautiful!). The relationships are jeopardised however, when each guys meets and becomes involved with a girl their own age.
Both Naomi Watts and Robin Wright are excellent as the gorgeous best friends. Wright has a surprisingly good Australian accent. Xavier Samuel and James Frecheville are equally as good in their supporting roles. While the four leads are all outstanding, I do wonder if it would’ve been as enjoyable if they all had not been so hot! Ben Mendelson is outstanding as Roz’s husband and Gary Sweet makes a great cameo as Saul, the neighbour who tries to have a crack at Lil.
Adoration is beautifully shot thanks to award-winning Cinematographer Christophe Beaucarne and it serves as a reminder of how lucky we are to live in such a stunning country. We are also reminded of what it’s like to grow up in Australia with the excessive smoking and the typical Aussie parties; with beer, rock music and the care-not attitudes we have before our adult years! I can’t believe that the director of such an Aussie movie is French!
Now I enjoyed this movie, but many people didn’t. What amazes me is that, in a world when so many movies focus on men’s sexual fantasies, no one blinks an eye, but when the girls have a go at younger lovers, they are ridiculed. Interesting the way the world works, hey?!
Reviewed by Kirstey Whicker
Rating out of 10: 7
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