Review of Adoration (2013) by Lenny R — 14 Mar 2017

Effectively utilizes awkwardness and discomfort to build tension. The whole first act is clumsily awkward, a little cheesy, annoying.

Ian and Tom feel like a couple of badly acted tools.

The moments are disengaging, watching them laugh or act silly and drunk.

Moves slow. Development between Harold and Roz is mindnumbingly dull. We know this film is about the women and boys getting together, but at around 13 minutes we get back to back scenes with Harold and Roz, killing any potential of momentum.

At about 14 minutes we get foreshadow of Roz and Ian as he is splayed out on the guest bed while she gets something from the fridge in kitchen. From kitchen to bedroom is where they eventually meet again, this time to fulfill their lust. And between these rooms is where Tom will catch his mother Roz coming out of the bedroom without pants, carrying his buddy's jeans.

Strange sense of settledness once all parties are out in the open amongst one another and sharing their experience together. I don't think Harold ever finds out.

There's a lot of plot and movement, it goes beyond exploring a mere situation; after years pass, it doesn't lose sight of that situation, which is bound to haunt them. This is where people will argue for television vs cinema, and I will fight for cinema. You can't get this done in TV without drawing the viewers so far in that it becomes a subculture, while the moral principles, revealed by outcomes, linger for years. By then people tune out - they got the dose of bad they needed and are inspired with it. You need those outcomes, to see how this situation pans out and determines a massive chunk of their lives. What happens in those years between? Who really needs to know that beyond what's implied? How did we become a society so obsessed with every little nitty gritty detail? It's about what we can see from a 4D perspective, which TV really removes us from. I appreciate the passage of time here, it highlights the point that karma can disguise itself and seemingly whither away, but creeps it's force back in through circumstances beyond our control.

First we get two years passage in which both parties are deep and comfortably into their respective relationships. And with that, the sensitivity of two older women whose ages demarcate subtle features quick enough to be noticed. The boys can easily be in denial about it, but the women are aware and concerned. This ultimately leads to the boys finding younger girls to mess around with, Tom more happily than Ian, who does so at Roz's insistence, knowing they have to part. Lil is crushed, but comes to understand. Ironically, it is Lil and Tom who will secretly continue their affair, infuriating Ian, who never believed he should've split from his more emotionally intense relationship with Roz - Lil and Tom started out as more of a revenge fuck for discovering Ian and Roz.