Adore (opens in Cleveland September 6th exclusively at Shaker Square Cinemas)

[ADORE opens in Cleveland on Friday September 6th exclusively at Shaker Square Cinemas.]

Review by Pamela Zoslov

A controversial premise and beautiful scenic cinematography are the chief assets of ADORE, a drama based on a Doris Lessing story titled “Grandmothers.” The story is about two women, best friends since childhood, who become the lovers of each others' young-adult sons. The affairs, and the cozy, quasi-incestuous quartet, continue for years — twenty in the Lessing story, considerably less in the film, before the women decide they'd best stop and let the young men find more age-appropriate mates.

In the hands of French director Anne Fontaine, the scandalous tale becomes a tedious exercise in artiness, in which photography is meant to fill in the lacunae of Christopher Hampton's screenplay. The seaside idyll is gloriously photographed, the camera savoring the muscular young men surfing, swimming and sunning themselves alongside the fit, bikini-clad mothers. The writing, however, is spare and vapid. In place of the interior monologues of Lessing's story, we have lengthy shots of the characters engaged in silent contemplation. Thinking, thinking. Also, imbibing endless goblets of wine. Drinking, drinking. In other words, it's a very French-style film, though in English and set in beachside New South Wales, Australia (relocated from Lessing's native South Africa.)