There are few such damningly ambivalent accolades with which to garland a film as the term ‘well-meaning’. The implication of failure goes practically hand in hand with those two words, for all the suggestion of intellection ambition and noble objectives. Unfortunately, that its intentions were admirable is the most generous thing that can be said about Adoration, the latest film from Canadian director Atom Egoyan, best known for The Sweet Hereafter.

With Adoration, Egoyan engages in a dialectic that takes in several very current issues: the ethics of terrorism is the primary one. In addition Egoyan explores the use and misuse of the internet as a forum for the exchange of information and misinformation, for impassioned debate and rabid diatribe. But Egoyan the intellectual gets the upper hand over Egoyan the dramatist – the story that encompasses these themes is contrived, cumbersome and reliant on characters acting in a bafflingly unexpected manner.

Egoyan’s skill and experience as a filmmaker is evident in the way that he pieces together the convoluted, non-linear storyline. Central to the story is a deception that gets out of hand, and we the audience are swallowed up by the fallacy, the first victims of this lie that is later revealed as a fiction. But while its structure is a satisfying conundrum, the story itself is unpersuasive.

At the heart of the film is high school student Simon (Devon Bostick), an orphan who lives with his embittered uncle (Scott Speedman), a tow truck driver who exists under a permanent cloud of disappointment and imminent financial privation. That Simon’s mother was a talented violinist is certain; the identity of his Lebanese father is more fluid. Was he, as Simon’s dying grandfather forcefully opines in footage shot on the boy’s digital camera, ‘a murderer’? Was he a terrorist who hid a bomb in his pregnant fiancée’s luggage intended to detonate during a flight to Israel? Or was he a loving husband and father? Simon, it turns out, is an intentionally unreliable narrator so it’s up to the audience to piece together the truth of the matter.

More problematic is the character played by Egoyan’s wife and regular collaborator Arsinée Khanjian. Sabine, Simon’s French teacher, is, to all intents and purposes, a stalker and a manipulator who insinuates herself into the lives of her student and his uncle to ‘test’ the older man’s tolerance. The plot gets clunkier by the minute, as Egoyan piles coincidence upon coincidence to justify Sabine’s bizarre behaviour. Much of the dialogue – particularly the earnest online discussions spouted into ubiquitous web cams – is chronically over-written.

It’s a handsome film – Egoyan favours contemplative, gliding tracking shots and finds beauty in the wintry Canadian half light. But ultimately, this is a difficult film to enjoy. It’s pretentious, didactic and burdened by a gratingly incessant and intrusive violin score which, by the second hour, feels like someone trying to saw your ears off with a penknife.

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