Adoration (15)

Fascinating, because it addresses the contemporary issues prompted by the ongoing war on the world waged by the US that prompts us all to question notions of terrorism and ideological identity.

Egoyan again employs his favourite muse Arsinee Khanijan as a French teacher who asks her students to translate a news item about an Arab who tried to use his pregnant girlfriend to carry a bomb on to a plane.

Her student (Devon Bostick) decides to present it as a factual account of his own family "dead" and before you can click your mouse it's online and debated in the chat rooms.

The ensuing narrative introduces us to his racist grandfather (Kenneth Welsh) and xenophobic uncle (Scott Speedman) and flashbacks to the who, what and why of his real parents' fate.

Is the lad telling the truth or constructing a fiction and who is that strange lady in the burqa and decorated haquib who wants to know the origins of their elaborate Christmas tableau?

Egoyan loves to create complicated plots to impress upon us the confluence of interests contriving to create conditions that his characters must challenge if they're to change their misconceptions.

So what's the flaw?

It's simply that anyone knowing Egoyan's former films like Speaking Parts and Exotica already know he's setting his audience up for a formulaic fall.

But even so there's a whole new audience to be won to this kind of film-making which is unafraid to push the political buttons, especially in critiquing the systemic alienation encouraged by capitalism.