Episode 185 - Adore

[grudlian. 4725]

I mean, Roz literally says “we’ve crossed a line.” I don’t know why you’d have that line in your movie if not to suggest *some* line has been crossed.

 

I would say, in its pretentious way, the character that goes on the biggest journey throughout the movie is the audience. Every new situation requires us to reevaluate how we feel. “Oh, now that you’re cool with the mother in son thing, what if we showed you the son’s had daughters? How do you feel now?” This is definitely a movie that requires an engaged viewer.

Having a line "We've crossed a line" isn't the same thing as the movie's purpose is the make the audience question "Where was the line crossed?" A lot of movies have characters lamenting "going too far" over something they've done, but I don't always feel that the filmmakers want us to have a debate on the characters morality.That's my question: Is the movie's purpose to question when the characters crossed the rubicon in their relationships?

 

Again, I'm honestly not sure. If it isn't the purpose, then I genuinely don't understand the purpose of the film. If it is, then I guess I completely missed it. I think your take is the most logical because there are functionally no stakes. There are stakes, technically, because people give up spouses, careers, children for their relationships. But every obstacle is resolved quickly and returns to where they were before. I suppose this could be a sexual version of Funny Games which posits pretty explicitly, "If you don't like what you're seeing, stop watching this movie." I could have said, "Hmmm...this sexual relationship is gross, I'll turn this movie off." But, I don't know, that wasn't very clear to me while watching it. I thought the purpose was to be scandalous and titillating but it didn't achieve that either.

I will say this...I don’t like this movie, but I don’t exactly think it’s a bad movie. I definitely *felt* something (discomfort mainly) so it didn’t exactly fail artistically - at least not for me. Now, would I watch it again? Oh, God no.

I think it's definitely a bad movie because I don't think it achieved whatever it was trying to achieve. While I'm not sure what that even was, all it managed to get out of me was boredom and mild confusion over which son was which. It's possible this is all because I've seen better movies cover much more taboo subjects than Adore. The filmmakers can't help it that I've seen other movies but they can at least their purpose clear which I don't think it was.

 

I found Jason perfectly voiced my criticisms on the movie. There are a lot of good movies within this movie but none of them are explored. They introduce a new obstacle that could be its own movie but it never once pays off in a meaningful way. I think I would have felt the exact same if the movie consisted of the first 20 minutes then cut directly to the final shot of everyone on the floating dock content in their relationships. Even though a lot technically happens, it feels like nothing happens because absolutely every plot development is addressed and over with in five minutes and none of the characters seemingly care.

 

Maybe you're right. Maybe this movie is all about audience meditation on the character's actions because nothing affects the four main characters at all.

[Geans 193]

Was it weird for anyone else that it wasn't a live episode? I love it either way, no matter what, but I'm so used to them now.

[Sadie 13]

Hi, I'm new to the forums but this movie bothered me so much that I had to join.

 

One thing that really stuck out to me is this: Lil's and Roz's wedding bands. Why does Lil wear her wedding band even 10+ years after her husband's death? After the funeral scene we have a time jump and she doesn't seem very upset about losing him. She certainly doesn't let loyalty to her deceased husband stop her from sleeping with Tom. And when comparing her marriage to Roz's, she quite casually brings up all of her husband's "girlfriends" knocking on their door and his drinking. So why keep wearing the ring? And along that same line, why does Roz keep hers after divorcing her husband, especially since it's implied that she initiated the divorce ("I'm not moving to Sydney")? [Please note that I'm not trying to dismiss the grieving processes for the death of a person or the end of a marriage. It just seems that in this film, it doesn't make sense for the women to keep wearing a traditional symbol of marriage once theirs are, for different reasons, over.]

 

Many of you have mentioned how nothing really happens in the film, or how stuff is glossed over so quickly. The podcast talked about it too. For me, I would have liked a scene where Lil is toying with her wedding band before finally taking it off. It would have been a simple but effective way to show this isn't just a fling. In fact, I figured that's why Lil was still wearing hers, so I kept waiting for her to take it off or to be in a scene without it--something that showed character development or drove the plot forward. But wanting character development and/or a plot in this film is, it turned out, asking for too much.

[Cameron H. 23786]

I think your take is the most logical because there are functionally I thought the purpose was to be scandalous and titillating but it didn't achieve that either.

 

Yeah, I didn’t get that they were going for titillating at all. If that were the goal, I feel like the movie would have involved only one son, the sex would have been much more frequent and explicit, and there would have been far less personal hand-wringing over whether their relationship was appropriate or not. The conflict would have also been something external rather than internal (e.g. making sure the husband/friend/mother doesn’t find out)

 

This movie is about feeling guilty about something that makes you feel good. Don’t they even say something like, “I feel bad because I’ve never felt so good?” For me, the crux of the movie is exactly what we’re discussing here. Technically, there’s nothing “wrong” with their relationships, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t still *feel* wrong - at least for some of us. That’s what the characters are struggling with throughout the course of the movie.

 

For me, it’s all tied up in the final shot. It’s the big question. It’s not a huge optimistic happy ending full of hugs and kisses and tearful reunions. It’s a tension sting and a slow pull out on our characters on their dock of isolation.

 

At the risk of sounding pedantic, I would also like to point out that the final line of the movie is a greeting. Ian swims out to them on the metaphor raft by says “Morning.” This is significant because the movie ends with a new beginning. I think it’s also important that the movie never tells us whether it’s a “good” morning or not. At that point, the movie has made it’s case and it’s up to the audience to decide for themselves how they feel. Are we happy for them? Upset? Do we embrace these characters or do we push them away?

 

Personally, I feel like they’re all a bunch of narcissistic sociopaths that couldn’t give a shit about the emotional wreckage they wreak, and are so infatuated with themselves, that the only thing that seems logical is to literally be in love with one another.

[tomspanks 9039]

Hi, I'm new to the forums but this movie bothered me so much that I had to join.

 

One thing that really stuck out to me is this: Lil's and Roz's wedding bands. Why does Lil wear her wedding band even 10+ years after her husband's death? After the funeral scene we have a time jump and she doesn't seem very upset about losing him. She certainly doesn't let loyalty to her deceased husband stop her from sleeping with Tom. And when comparing her marriage to Roz's, she quite casually brings up all of her husband's "girlfriends" knocking on their door and his drinking. So why keep wearing the ring? And along that same line, why does Roz keep hers after divorcing her husband, especially since it's implied that she initiated the divorce ("I'm not moving to Sydney")? [Please note that I'm not trying to dismiss the grieving processes for the death of a person or the end of a marriage. It just seems that in this film, it doesn't make sense for the women to keep wearing a traditional symbol of marriage once theirs are, for different reasons, over.]

 

I didn't notice that, but maybe they kept he bands to dissuade men from hitting on them? Not that it worked with Saul...

[JonathanVik 37]

Any idea what the fight where the boys almost killed each other was about? It happened randomly and was never mentioned again.

[Cameron H. 23786]

Any idea what the fight where the boys almost killed each other was about? It happened randomly and was never mentioned again.

 

I just thought it was because they were immature doofuses... ;)/>

 

I can’t remember exactly, but isn’t that when Tom tells Ian that he is fucking his mother? Even if that’s not the exact moment, I think Ian feels like he and Roz are “in love” and assumes that Tom is just playing around and will eventually hurt his mother. And, of course, from his perspective, Tom feels like Ian is just fooling around - little suspecting that his friend is actually “madly in love” with his mother. In all honesty, it might have just been that Tom made a dumb joke about the situation that Ian didn’t like.

 

It’s about intentions and hypocrisy. I feel like it’s also about juxtaposing their mothers’ oblivious complacency with their emotional turmoil (I.e. quietly laying on the beach while their sons fight in a raging sea). Just because something you do isn’t - in the strictest sense - wrong, doesn’t mean there aren’t, or won’t be, repercussions. Even though everything seems alright, these relationships are taking an invisible toll and forcing character relationships to evolve. This is why the movie resets so often. Every time things get settled and the characters reach some level of homeostasis, a new complication arises and everyone is forced to - once again - reassess and change. The end of the movie is the culmination of this evolution.

 

However, ultimately, like a lot of the movie, I feel like that scene is left deliberately vague so the audience can make their own assumptions. Of course, this is just what I personally got out of it, I could be wrong.

[Sadie 13]

Also, one thing that was kinda glossed over in regards to how they can live these seemingly care-free lives at this expensive looking home on the beach was that the dead husband apparently left Naomi Watts a hefty life insurance policy along with some other type of inheritance, which was a bigger part of the novella.

Around minute 52 in the film, Ian leaves Western Yacht and someone says "Goodbye, Mr Western." So the yacht company was either the dead husband's or it was his and Lil's (Naomi Watts), so it became solely hers when he died. Perhaps there was also a life insurance policy or money left to her in the will, but it seems that Lil has been competent enough to keep the yacht business afloat all on her own (sorry, I couldn't resist the pun). Plus, it makes sense that it's a family business; how else could Ian land what seems to be a big job there at like age 20?

[JonathanVik 37]

I just thought it was because they were immature doofuses... ;)/>

 

I can’t remember exactly, but isn’t that when Tom tells Ian that he is fucking his mother? Even if that’s not the exact moment, I think Ian feels like he and Roz are “in love” and assumes that Tom is just playing around and will eventually hurt his mother. And, of course, from his perspective, Tom feels like Ian is just fooling around - little suspecting that his friend is actually “madly in love” with his mother. In all honesty, it might have just been that Tom made a dumb joke about the situation that Ian didn’t like.

 

It’s about intentions and hypocrisy. I feel like it’s also about juxtaposing their mothers’ oblivious complacency with their emotional turmoil (I.e. quietly laying on the beach while their sons fight in a raging sea). Just because something you do isn’t - in the strictest sense - wrong, doesn’t mean their aren’t, or won’t be, repercussions. Even though everything seems alright, these relationships are taking an invisible toll and forcing character relationships to evolve. This is why the movie resets so often. Every time things get settled and the characters reach some level of homeostasis, a new complication arises and everyone is forced to - once again - reassess and change. The end of the movie is the culmination of this evolution.

 

However, ultimately, like a lot of the movie, I feel like that scene is left deliberately vague so the audience can make their own assumptions. This is all just what I personally got out of it.

 

It would help if this movie had more than twenty minutes of dialogue and that is a generous estimation.

[gigi-tastic 2322]

What if this movie starred Brad Pitt and Matt Damon fucking each other's daughters?

 

"Did we do that?"

"They're young Goddesses."

 

I think we'd all have to register as sex offenders for even watching it!

 

I couldn't watch this one one. The trailer alone made me too uncomfortable. I'd rather watch a movie made up of nothing but that God awful kiss from the Lakehouse reenacted by Rodney Dangerfield at his worst and one of the Garagepail Kids grown up than sit through this. The uncomfortable ick feeling that you get when seeing explicit sex scenes with your parents or just the general feeling of getting a pap smear is what this movie is giving me.

[gigi-tastic 2322]

 

I’m not sure you are referencing something that was brought up in the episode, but again, I cannot stress this enough, this has nothing to do with a younger men/women with older women/men dynamic. And even though the movie tries to make that a thing, it really isn’t. Everyone in this movie is legally an adult. I could give a shit about their age differences. It’s the familial closeness that’s bothersome. It’s incest without technically being incest. Naomi Watts and Robin Wright even look remarkably similar.

 

So, just for clarity’s sake, age difference? NBD. Engaging in a sexual relationship with someone you raised from an infant and is practically a family member? BD.

 

Or, in other words, the problem isn’t that Woody Allen is older than Soon-Yi.

 

Yes this is my exact problem with the movie!!! These women are so close and so a part of one another's lives that they are in their own way a family and are if not surrogate mothers to each other's children they are at least surrogate aunts. It's not that these guys are extremely young that is what makes me feel the most uncomfortable with this, it's these familial bonds. If it was a story about two older women hooking up with their son's friend from school, without this close backstory it would be another thing entirely.

[gigi-tastic 2322]

Dudes... I figured out who wrote this movie.

https://youtu.be/FCHZqT3mR5I?t=9

(Because you probably didn't watch it)

Rosemary (Carrie Fisher):

"OK, let's find a pen and start that screenplay. This movie is going to knock them on their asses!"

Liz (Tina Fey):

"Right... what's it about?"

Rosemary:

"Women in their 50's join the army, and get laid by a bunch of grateful 18 year olds."

Liz:

"Oh god"

Rosemary:

"Yea, exactly. I predict opening week...a million dollars!"

 

Carrie Fisher truly was a treasure. The universe is darker, less glitter filled place without her here with us.

[gigi-tastic 2322]

Because I'm a big dumb dumb every time I see this movie mentioned /hear people talk about it I assume people are talking about Adore Delano until my brain remembers that not everyone is unhealthy obsessed with drag queens and this movie is a Thing. 2014 was a confusing time for me because both of these were a Thing.

[tomspanks 9039]

Maybe you're right. Maybe this movie is all about audience meditation on the character's actions because nothing affects the four main characters at all.

 

I felt like the events did affect the 4 characters emotionally, but it was kind of one-note. Basically, everyone was jealous all the time. Tom witnesses a pantless Roz leaving Ian's bedroom and what does he do? Sleeps with Lil. Tom gets married and both Lil and Roz are jealous of Tom's wife and Ian's dance partner, respectively. Roz breaks it off with Ian in part, I think, because she wants to spare Lil of jealousy. Ian sees Tom and Lil going against their group pact and the shit hits the fan. I'm speaking in broad terms, and surely there were other emotions involved, but to me a big theme of the movie was jealousy. Well, jealousy and salads. Was it me or were they always eating salads?

 

ETA: Salads.

 

In white bowl in lower right corner:

 

Ian mixing salad in the background:

 

Lil mixing salad in the background:

 

Salad in the lower right corner:

[Cam Bert 8145]

 

I felt like the events did affect the 4 characters emotionally, but it was kind of one-note. Basically, everyone was jealous all the time. Tom witnesses a pantless Roz leaving Ian's bedroom and what does he do? Sleeps with Lil. Tom gets married and both Lil and Roz are jealous of Tom's wife and Ian's dance partner, respectively. Roz breaks it off with Ian in part, I think, because she wants to spare Lil of jealousy. Ian sees Tom and Lil going against their group pact and the shit hits the fan. I'm speaking in broad terms, and surely there were other emotions involved, but to me a big theme of the movie was jealousy. Well, jealousy and salads. Was it me or were they always eating salads?

I don't know about the salads but I'm pretty sure they are always drinking or drunk.

[gigi-tastic 2322]

 

I felt like the events did affect the 4 characters emotionally, but it was kind of one-note. Basically, everyone was jealous all the time. Tom witnesses a pantless Roz leaving Ian's bedroom and what does he do? Sleeps with Lil. Tom gets married and both Lil and Roz are jealous of Tom's wife and Ian's dance partner, respectively. Roz breaks it off with Ian in part, I think, because she wants to spare Lil of jealousy. Ian sees Tom and Lil going against their group pact and the shit hits the fan. I'm speaking in broad terms, and surely there were other emotions involved, but to me a big theme of the movie was jealousy. Well, jealousy and salads. Was it me or were they always eating salads?

 

If movies and tv have taught me anything it's that rich white ladies LOVE their salad. According to tv/movies rich women in their natural habitat survive on a steady diet of salad, wine, and yogurt . Occasionally they will nibble a bit of cheese or eat a grape.

[Cam Bert 8145]

Can we just talk about the name of the movie because this movie seems to have more names than it does characters.

 

First the original short story that this movie is based upon is The Grandmothers. This movie is an adaptation of that story and the framing devices of starting and ending in a restaurant with the women having lunch with their sons, the wives and their grandchildren is missing so it makes sense to change the name. So when it was made in Australia it was released as Adoration which is a more movie friendly title suiting the adaptation. Then is some bizarre Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone level chicanery the title was modified for America to Adore. This held true for the UK as well but then upon international release it was changed twice more. In some places it was Two Mothers which fits more in line with the short story but suits the adaptation more. Then in other places in was Perfect Mothers which carries with it a whole other set of issues and can be interpreted many ways. Yet this movie had more name changes in its localization. For me here in Japan it was called 美しい絵の崩壊 (Utsukushii E no Houkai) or Breakdown of a Beautiful Pictuce which has nothing to with adoration or mothers at all!

 

Now the question is why so many names? Were they trying to throw people off the trail of a not so well received movie? Was just simplifying it for difference audiences? Did every production company involved just get to name it whatever they felt best?

[AdrianFlynn 68]

The budget 16million made $674982 under title adore but then $1.8 million under title 2 mothers. So why didnt they just keep that title

[FisterRoboto 7499]

It's crazy to me how y'all seem to keep the two dudes straight in your heads. Like, I watched the movie and MULTIPLE times, I had to be like, "Which fuckboy is that one again?"

[sethersmith 11]

Not getting to hear June's thoughts on this movie is the greatest injustice in the history of the world

[Mattrix 17]

It's crazy to me how y'all seem to keep the two dudes straight in your heads. Like, I watched the movie and MULTIPLE times, I had to be like, "Which fuckboy is that one again?"

 

Blonde guy, Naomi Watts son

Brunette, robin Wright’s son.

 

 

[gigi-tastic 2322]

It's crazy to me how y'all seem to keep the two dudes straight in your heads. Like, I watched the movie and MULTIPLE times, I had to be like, "Which fuckboy is that one again?"

 

I mean I tried so hard to watch it and just... could not do it. I just had an icky feeling in my stomach the whole time . Of course I was getting over food poisoning so that didn't help . I manged to just watch clips of the most important scenes after reading the plot on Wikipedia and I had your exact problem. I just assumed it was because I only watched clips but it looks like a lot of people had trouble with it too. Everyone looked the same to me. The only person I could tell was the same was Robin Wright but that's probably because I've been in love with her since I saw the Princess Bride.

[gigi-tastic 2322]

Can we talk about how attractive these women are? Like not just normal movie pretty . Robin Wright is down right stunning and Naomi Watts doesn't look so bad herself.

Like of course you gave birth to a gods woman look at yourself! YOU'RE A GODDESSES! I mean yes it makes sense that they feel shocked that their son's friend might want to sleep them but more because it's a kid they've pretty much raised since birth and maybe less with the fact they are old and undesirable which is what I felt like the film was implying. Like look at these two ancient old ladies! Shocking these hot bros want to sleep with them isn't it?! With much less emphasis on the incestual issues of the relationship. Honestly it seemed like the women's biggest issues with their relationships with each other's son's was the fact they were older and that would make their lovers eventually lose interest, not that they were sleeping with men whom they had helped raise.

 

Like no. Fuck that. Even this idea that these men would lose interest because their partners were older is ridiculous for these characters to have. Look at them. These women are drop dead BEAUTIFUL. Just because they are over the age of 28 it doesn't make them less desirable or worthy of love because of that. Outside of the age difference they don't really seem to have any issues with their relationships. In fact out side of these weird incest lite relationships the seem to have pretty great lives (? Like they seem to spend all their time on the beach or that raft. I couldn't handle this film and only watched clips so feel free to call me out on this or anything)

 

I get that in Hollywood women aging is seeing as a sin. The moment a woman stops looking like a baby she's thrown a way for a newer shinier embryo. But something tells me these women probably would have a bit more confidence and wouldn't have called off their "amazing" (creepy ) affairs because they thought their lover would leave them for being old.

[gigi-tastic 2322]

Blonde guy, Naomi Watts son

Brunette, robin Wright’s son.

To b fair I only saw clips and I was recovering from food poisoning plus I suffer from Blandly Attractive Face Blindness. Pretty much anyone on the cw and any dc/ marvel whatever tv shows are interchangeable to me.

[gigi-tastic 2322]

The budget 16million made $674982 under title adore but then $1.8 million under title 2 mothers. So why didnt they just keep that title

Oh interesting

I wonder why one made more than the other.