The Adjuster

Canada 1991. Director: Atom Egoyan Cast: Elias Koteas, Arsinée Khanjian, Maury Chaykin, Gabrielle Rose, David Hemblen, Jennifer Dale, Don McKellar

Dates and Venue 1 Mar @ 7 & 9 pm & 6 Mar @ 9.10 pm | Pacific Cinematheque, Vancouver

Reviewer Ed Farolan

Filmmaker Egoyan has a certain style to his directorial approach: jigsaw puzzling. He likes to take disparate pieces of a puzzle and put them all together. He starts off his films with scenes that make no sense, and then, as the film progresses, the puzzle comes together.

His later films which I reviewed for the VIFF, Adoration (2008), The Sweet Hereafter (1997), Exotica (1994) are more fine-tuned than this earlier film where, at the end, I was a bit confused because it appeared that the adjuster (Elias Koteas) had just met the woman whose house burned down and whom he eventually married. What confused me was it appeared that the house that had just got burned was the house that they shared after being married. This wasn't very clear.

Apparently, this film was inspired by a tue event. On New Year's Eve in 1989, a fire destroyed the home of Atom Egoyan's parents, in Victoria, British Columbia. Having traveled there to assist his parents during the aftermath, he met with the insurance adjuster handling his parents' claim. Egoyan was struck by the degree of control someone in this position could have over people's lives, especially during a time of such vulnerability. The film shows how the adjuster provides added comfort to several of his clients, men and women, by sleeping with them.

Although the characters are interesting--the adjuster's wife (Arsinee Khanjian) is a censor of pornographic films, and there's a rich couple (Maury Chaykin and Gabrielle Rose) who spend their time staging a series of elaborate sexual fantasies--I found there was no real depth of characterization which in later films such as Adoration was a tremendous improvement to this earlier film. The coming together of the jigsaw puzzles in his later films is also more clear-cut.

© 2010 Ed Farolan