It all starts with a bond between two little girls, Roz and Lil, that continues well into adulthood, marriage, and motherhood. It appears the two main characters Roz (played by Robin Wright) and Lil (played by Naomi Watts)led similar lives with similar timing and managed to, live next door to each other in an idyllic, isolated beach front community, where each had one child...at the same time...and the child for both was a boy, and the boys grew up to be best friends. The two women work in the same community they live in, and spend a significant amount of time together having dinner, wine, and walking the beach together. Their sons, who look like young gods, spend all day surfing before retiring to dinner, wine, and sometimes living room dancing with their mothers. Within this tightly knit foursome, age, maturity, and boundaries slowly and almost imperceptibly evaporate as the two best friends find themselves doing what they've always done...what the other one does. Ben Mendelsohn plays Harold, the husband of Roz, who treats Harold like an after thought. When Harold announces to Roz that he has been offered the job of his dreams, and that the family will have to move to Sydney for his job, Roz decides she loves where she lives more than she loves her husband of several years and they begin separate lives, leaving the two mothers and two sons together in paradise. This is the perfect (and unrealistic) set up for what follows. Other than the fact that two young men who look like Ian and Tom would be swamped with young girls their own ages, and that these two young men would have normal social lives with their peers, and that boys their ages don't usually hang out and drink with their mothers, it's plausible that an attraction could start between a young, handsome man and his mother's attractive best friend who he has known all his life. But for it to happen once, then happen twice within the same foursome in addition to all the facts that have to line up in the set up of this story, is just too much to ask the viewing audience to believe. Later in the movie when Roz throws her son a birthday party, her house is full of people, and I have to wonder, where did they all come from? and why do none of them know about these secret May-December affairs? or if they do, does it matter at all? Later I find out it does matter, when both boys eventually meet and marry women their own ages and father a daughter each, of the same age. It matters a lot to the wives. So the two best friends, who are now grandmothers, lose access to their grandchildren, which seems to be the only penalty for continuing the sexual relationships with their respective sons. And so they all (4) are left with each other. Wright and Watts are superb, and manage to carry off the characters flawlessly. Mendelsohn has maybe all of 10 minutes of screen time, which is a shame, as he is such a talented actor and is a pleasure to watch in any film he's ever been in. Samuels and Frencheville are certainly handsome, and have their clothing off more than on, so the female viewing audience has some idea of the temptation poor Roz and Lil are up against, and how difficult it must be to resist that temptation. The cinematography is awesome. Life seems very perfect, but for the fact that these two mothers are having sex with each other's sons, and nobody seems too upset about it. In fact, both Roz and Lil are very accepting of it. Harold eventually moves on and has a new family to love and to love him back, and nobody ever tells him what is going on, not even his son. I'm not saying this couldn't happen, but where I'm from, somebody would at least be angry. Somebody eventually does get angry. It's Ian, when Roz says it cannot continue and it's over. Weirdly, she only does that because Tom has cheated on Lil with another girl his own age, and Lil is wounded because it's over for her and Tom. So Roz ends her relationship with Ian. So in the end, the story seems to be about two best friends whose friendship is all consuming and without boundaries, no matter the sacrifices. If that's not what it's about, then I really didn't get it. Great acting, beautiful setting, an enjoyable film to watch...just not very believable.
Review of Adoration
