Director: Anne Fontaine.
Starring: Robin Wright, Naomi Watts, Xavier Samuel, James Frecheville, Ben Mendelsohn.
Running Time: 100 minutes.
Synopsis: Robin Wright and Naomi Watts star in a subversive tale of grown-up friendship, female desire and sexual transgression from Anne Fontaine.
Sometimes a film can really surprise you, for better or for worse. The most wonderfully surprising thing about ADORE is just how enjoyably terrible it is. Anne Fontaine presents a bedroom farce without the comedy. That’s not to say it isn’t funny, but you will find yourself laughing at it, not with it. There are intentionally comedic moments which elicit none of the intended response at all, but the ineptly scripted, po-faced melodrama will almost certainly bring a smile to your face.
Christopher Hampton’s script concerns Roz (Robin Wright) and Lil (Naomi Watts), two beautiful, successful women who are as close as sisters, with bronzed demigods for sons who are practically cousins. They spend their days surfing, drinking wine together in their beach front properties, dancing and loving life in their extravagant, care free world. Then the bed-hopping begins as Ian (Xavier Samuel), Lil’s son, makes the beast with two back with Roz. They are seen by Tom (James Frecheville), Roz’s son, who consequently leaps on Lil like a horny Zebedee. Following? No? Doesn’t matter. They all find out pretty quickly, depriving us of any dramatic tension whatsoever and this becomes the new status quo. But nobody can seem to keep it in their pants and things eventually go tits up.
Had this been played as a comedy, it would have been great. Had it been played as a Renaissance comedy, it would have been incredible. And it may well have been, for you wouldn’t know it was set in modern-day. Nobody uses their phones or the internet. Nobody texts their friends to warn of impending arrivals that may compromise their illicit situations. If these plot devices are to be ignored, why not set it in another time where they couldn’t be used instead of mysteriously ignored? Plus everyone would have looked great in period costumes and all the bodice ripping would have been quite, quite welcome.
Speaking of which, the one thing Fontaine gets right is the sex. The kissing and humping are all tip-top, with a ridiculously attractive cast indulging in some filthy, taboo trysts that appeal to the forbidden fantasies we all have. But when the characters discuss it, you can’t help but laugh and find yourself swaying between chuckling and wincing at this frankly ludicrous film.
But here’s the thing. It is fun. ADORE is a profoundly bad film, but it is undoubtably enjoyable. Sexy and silly, poorly made but ever so watchable, it’s an atrocity so fantastically awful, it should be described as an anti-triumph. This film doesn’t deserve you, but you deserve it.
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