adore movie reviews

“Adore” is, as my late mother would say in describing Sidney Sheldon novels, “good trash.”

Shooting in vivid 35mm Cinemascope, director Anne Fontaine exquisitely depicts an otherworldly coastal wonderland: a nook of New South Wales, Australia, that is so secluded and idyllic, it’s as if the rules of civilized society don’t apply there. It’s just sun, sand and surf, with seemingly no responsibilities—all of which lead the gorgeous occupants of this Shangri-La to behave badly.

But! The people playing them are esteemed actresses: Naomi Watts and Robin Wright . And the adapted screenplay comes from a respected writer: Christopher Hampton (who won an Oscar for adapting “ Dangerous Liaisons “). The pedigree of the players partly obscures what tawdry guilty pleasure the film is.

Watts and Wright co-star as Lil and Roz, respectively: best friends who’ve frolicked on these shores and shared secrets since their earliest days of childhood. Now in their mid-40s, they remain as close as ever. They both stayed in their hometown and live just a couple doors away from each other in stylish beachfront homes.

In a neat parallel, their children have grown up as best friends, too. Lil’s son, Ian ( Xavier Samuel ), and Roz’s son, Tom ( James Frecheville ), run along the same sliver of sand and ride those same pounding waves. Fontaine reflects the passage of time and ritual from one generation to the next through a series of clever, elegant edits.

Cut to the present day. The boys are now men of about 20. The mothers and sons frequently hang out together, enjoying drunken dinners on the deck and dancing as the sun sets. Lil’s husband died when Ian was just a boy and Roz’s husband, Harold ( Ben Mendelsohn ), is away for weeks at a time teaching drama at Sydney University. (Mendelsohn, a versatile character who often brings a sense of danger to his roles, doesn’t get much to do here.)

But these long evenings have more than a whiff of a double date; you can sense the leering and longing as the mothers comment that their sons are like gods wandering among us (a line taken from the Doris Lessing novella that inspired the film). And indeed, these young men are handsome, muscular creatures, full of pectorals and promise, often photographed without shirts.

You can see where this is headed.

Roz’s fling with Ian begins quite organically in the middle of the night during one of the usual sleepovers that occur when one son passes out at the other’s house. Tom, meanwhile, initiates his affair with Lil out of spiteful revenge—but the interlude quickly turns into something more.

They all know that this cross-generational swapping is wrong;  “We’ve crossed a line,” Lil says to Roz in a laughable bit of understatement. And yet… and yet! It can’t be wrong when it feels so right, to borrow from Debby Boone. There’s no room for kidding here, though; Fontaine treats the love scenes—and the relationships as a whole, which go on for a couple of years—with a seriousness that eventually morphs into melodrama.

“Adore” is decadent fantasy fulfillment masquerading as a declaration of feminist independence. Somewhere in here is a message about the importance of remaining sexy and vital in your 40s—about asserting your own identity once more after decades of being defined as someone’s wife and someone’s mother. The blonde and athletic Lil and Roz have a vibrancy about them that’s inspiring—and a similarity in appearance and demeanor that could make them sisters, adding just enough of an implied incest factor to make “Adore” that much ickier.

Still, it’s rare to see such stories of mature women’s needs told on screen with such intimacy and tenderness. Watts and Wright bring great dignity to the roles as well as a relatable vulnerability, as their characters acknowledge that time is gaining on them. It’s easy to see what inspires them to take this risk, easy to see how alive the affairs make them feel. (The sons’ motivations are murkier, since the characters are interchangeably hunky.)

But the trappings are so lushly beautiful and their inhabitants are such spectacular specimens of tanned, toned flesh that the cumulative effect makes “Adore” feel like high-quality soft-core porn. It’s something you’d see late at night on Cinemax, only it features Oscar winners and nominees.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series “Ebert Presents At the Movies” opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

• James Frecheville as Tom
• Sophie Lowe as Hannah
• Xavier Samuel as Ian
• Naomi Watts as Lil
• Robin Wright as Roz
• Ben Mendelsohn as Harold
• Anne Fontaine
• Christopher Hampton
• Doris Lessing

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A pair of childhood friends and neighbors fall for each other's sons. A pair of childhood friends and neighbors fall for each other's sons. A pair of childhood friends and neighbors fall for each other's sons.

• Anne Fontaine
• Doris Lessing
• Christopher Hampton
• Naomi Watts
• Robin Wright
• Xavier Samuel
• 146 User reviews
• 113 Critic reviews
• 37 Metascore
• 1 win & 4 nominations

Top cast 37

• Roz's grand-daughter
• Lil's grand-daughter
• Theatre Director

• Mrs. Alving
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia Doris Lessing 's original novel "The Grandmothers" was said to be based on a true incident.
• Goofs Sophie Lowe plays Hannah and Jessica Tovey plays Mary, but their roles are swapped in the end credits.

Lil : It was just important for us to know it hadn't gone away. That it was still alive. Christ, I felt like I would suffocate if I didn't have it.

• Connections Referenced in Celebrated: Naomi Watts (2015)
• Soundtracks Beautiful Trash (Instrumental) Written by Lance Ferguson & Meg Washington Performed by Lanu featuring Meg Washington Published by Perfect Pitch Music Publishing / J. Albert & Son Pty Ltd Under license from Tru Thoughts, UK Licensed courtesy of Inertia Music

User reviews 146

• john-529-630291
• Jan 11, 2014
• April 3, 2013 (France)
• Official Facebook
• Official site
• Two Mothers
• Seal Rocks, New South Wales, Australia (main location, houses and beach)
• Screen Australia
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $16,000,000 (estimated)
• Sep 8, 2013

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 52 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Review: ‘Adore’ Starring Robin Wright, Naomi Watts and Ben Mendelsohn

Kimber myers.

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We’ll be honest from sentence one. “ Adore ” hits two spots we love: movies for adults and (not-dumb) movies for and about women. We have our brief affairs with explosions, spit-take-inducing dialogue and car chases, but we have a long-term relationship with movies that are quiet and mature. They get bonus points if they feature strong female relationships. Okay, and hot dudes. But for all its efforts for seriousness, “Adore” never quite reaches true art, despite gorgeous cinematography and some fine work from its cast.

Roz ( Robin Wright ) and Lil ( Naomi Watts ) have been friends since childhood, with their bond only growing stronger over the decades. Growing up as neighbors, the women become even closer as each raises a son within a stone’s throw of the other’s home and a beautiful beach on the Australian coast. Roz’s son Tom ( James Frecheville , “ Animal Kingdom ”) and Lil’s son Ian ( Xavier Samuel , “ The Twilight Saga: Eclipse ”) become nearly as close as they’ve come of age, creating a feeling of both awkwardness and odd inevitability when Ian kisses Roz. Rather than running, Roz responds in kind. When her son, Tom, sees her walking out of his best friend’s room in the middle of the night, he takes an action that wouldn’t have likely been our first response: he seduces Lil. There are hands wrung and punches thrown, but there’s surprisingly little debate over “right” and “wrong.” Instead, the two couples proceed with their romances with far less comment than when we brought home that date with a nose ring.

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Frecheville plays Tom’s lightness with seeming ease, while Samuel seems perfect for Ian’s constant brooding and melancholy. We’re also always happy to see Ben Mendelsohn in any film, though his role as Roz’s husband early in the film is far too short. Unsurprisingly, the film’s focus and its best work comes from Watts and Wright. They ably play two halves of a whole, with particularly good work from Wright. The script from Christopher Hampton (“ Atonement ”) isn’t quiet up to the talent’s level, particularly the dialogue that could have used more than a bit of polish.

“Adore” is a proudly feminist film, with both its pedigree and its themes allowing additional opportunities for women. Based on a story by Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing , the film is the English-language debut of French filmmaker Anne Fontaine . There’s been so much made of the male gaze in cinema, but Fontaine’s film and cinematographer Christophe Beaucarne ’s camera unabashedly celebrate the bodies of Samuel’s Ian and Frecheville’s Tom. As much as the cinematography focuses on the photogenic landscape of the Australian coast, it lingers even more on the young bodies of its male stars. “They’re beautiful,” says Roz, echoing the audience’s thoughts. “They’re like young gods.”

Meanwhile, Wright and Watts get their fair share of admiring screentime, celebrating that beauty isn’t relegated only to teenage girls. Beyond the focus on the physical, the film also champions a feminist aesthetic. There’s no prescribed path for Roz and Lil; or if there is, it isn’t the path that either takes. They challenge the traditional roles of wives and mothers, often placing their own happiness as well as their singular bond ahead of what society wants from them. At times, “Adore” feels like a fairy tale in its matter-of-fact approach to the out-of-the-ordinary situation. There are certainly elements of straight female fantasy, like romancing a young god two decades your junior, living an idyllic life in a beach house and having perfect skin in your 40s.

However, for a story with so much feeling, there’s surprisingly little emotional resonance in “Adore.” There’s heat and passion enough to make the innocent blush. We were struck by the beauty, both of the setting as well as the characters (we would gladly trade Nicolas Winding Refn retiring from film in exchange for Wright’s beauty secrets), but we didn’t connect with the characters. We weren’t sure where this film—that at times feels like a classical tragedy—would ultimately take its characters, but we also didn’t really care. By treating its central issue as a relative non-issue, “Adore” works to distance itself from its audience. We wanted to care far more than we actually did. [B-]

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Movie review: ‘Adore’ liaisons are less dangerous than they could be

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“Adore” is a twisted sexual drama about misguided affections between older women and younger men, which wouldn’t be all that outrageous if not for the dicey details, so let’s get right to it.

Naomi Watts and Robin Wright, two of Hollywood’s most beautiful and most accomplished women, play mothers who sleep with each other’s sons.

The sons are of age, with college on the horizon. The boys, not the mothers, are the seducers. It’s all very civilized, but still ... They really are still boys. And the affairs begin at a time in life when the kind of men they will become is still in flux.

GRAPHIC: From Toronto to the Oscars

In a country hyper-sensitive to sexual relations in virtually any form, “Adore” is built on a kind of line-crossing that doesn’t rest so easily. Which is to say, it’s a challenging film, but maybe not as challenging as it should be.

Everywhere the camera turns — even the painful parts — is gorgeous, gauzy, idyllic, as if the images, like the lovers, are in denial too.

Perhaps the film, based on Doris Lessing’s novella, “The Grandmothers,” about two best friends in Britain, may play differently in Europe where attitudes are looser, less puritanical.

Certainly “Adore’s” slighter, warmer title suits its stars and its handling of the subject better. And its director. Anne Fontaine usually applies a light touch to tawdry tales. “Dangerous Liaisons’” screenwriter Christopher Hampton, who collaborated with the writer-director on 2009’s “Coco Before Chanel,” worked with her to adapt the complex sexual alliances Lessing toys with.

There is a sort of natural progression at work in “Adore,” an explanation for why and how the entanglements happen.

Lil and Roz, Watts and Wright respectively, have grown up together, married and live in houses only a stone’s throw apart. They each have a son, Ian and Tom, who have become best friends too.

The families do everything together, and are blended so completely it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. It’s true when Lil’s son Ian (Xavier Samuel) says that Roz is like a second mother. Until one night ...

In the heat of that night, Ian grabs Roz in a passionate embrace that soon leads to wild abandon. The shock of the scene, caught in a glimpse, drives her son Tom (James Frecheville) next door and into Lil’s arms. The complications and complicity of what follows are where the movie spends most of its time.

WATCH: Toronto International Film Festival 2013 trailers

The film opens years earlier with Lil and Roz as young girls swimming madly toward a wooden float anchored off shore, a place where secrets are shared. The girls are barely dry before they are young mothers with husbands and sons. A funeral quickly removes Lil’s spouse; a top university job in Sydney, Australia, will soon dispense with Roz’s. Harold (Ben Mendelsohn) fears that Roz and Tom won’t join him, setting the stage for moral dilemmas to come.

The ocean and the float are images the film returns to many times. Water is for transitions. The boys hit the waves with their surfboards and return full-grown. The float is where we discover the current state of affairs. Who is lying next to whom will tell us a lot.

There is a bit of resistance at the beginning, when Ian makes that first move. Doubts do flash across Roz’s face. But a weird everydayness sets in. Roz and Ian, Lil and Tom, always together. Dinners shared, life looks virtually the same through the lens of director of photography Christophe Beaucarne, one of Europe’s rising stars, who also shot “Coco” for Fontaine.

The women do become grandmothers and this is when the film’s story feels most real. The pain of the breakups is almost unbearable, giving their lovers over to other women a sacrifice made for the sake of their sons, for “family” harmony.

And yet, setting the premise aside for a moment, it is far easier to buy Wright and Watts as younger women moving into middle-age. Grandmother territory is a stretch, especially since both wear the bikinis they spend much of the movie in so well.

PHOTOS: Telluride Film Festival 2013

Falls from grace fueled by sexual urges are Fontaine’s sweet spot. But like the French director’s 2003’s “Natalie,” more typically high-end prostitutes are pushing the buttons, not refined mums. The very casualness about the specific sexual slide in “Adore” weakens the film. The choices come with a cost, but they weather it too easily.

There are no echoes of Watt’s fiercely protective mother in “The Impossible,” which earned the actress her second Oscar nomination earlier this year. Her quandaries are wrapped up in sexual need and her childhood friendship rather than any damage to the boys. But Wright holds something back even as Roz gives in, and in doing so saves her character and nearly rescues the film.

The actress only grows more brilliant with time, her current run as a savvy political wife on the Netflix series “House of Cards” is stunning. As such, it would be easy for her to overshadow the film, but Wright is a generous actress and Samuel, in particular, is a standout opposite her. He’s made Ian so sensual, so insistent and yet so wounded by his father’s death and his all-consuming love for Roz, that you can almost understand, if not forgive, all that “Adore” lays bare.

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MPAA rating: R for sexual content and language

Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes

Playing: In select theaters

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Adore Reviews

Its Australian title, 'Adoration', sounds as flat on the tongue and unsure of itself as the actual film. Anne Fontaine never finds the right voice for her film's message and ends up with this disappointing, albeit handsomely made, effort.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jul 19, 2020

There's a fascinating depth to this challenging piece, even if you are laughing when you're not supposed to.

Full Review | Aug 23, 2019

As crazy as it may seem, it's a pretty compelling journey to watch.

Full Review | Aug 22, 2018

While Adore is based on some fairly salacious material, it tries to be an earnest drama examining the nature of friendship and lust and leaving convention behind. Unfortunately, Adore is a snore.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Dec 3, 2017

Christopher Hampton's pared-back screenplay and Christophe Beaucarne's ravishing lensmanship locate the action in a reality that is only a blink away from the simmering landscape of the unconscious.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 27, 2017

This film needed serious judgment: someone to rewrite the underwritten draft of the script and to have a firmer opinion on these terribly unappealing characters

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jan 19, 2014

There's more depth and feeling to the admittedly provocative premise of this twisted sexual drama than you might expect...It's the excoriating payoff to the story that makes Adoration a cautionary tale with a major sting.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 21, 2013

The worst part of Adoration was when I returned to my car and had to pay for my parking, realising that the awfulness of the movie actually took a quantifiable toll on my life: 111 minutes, and $8.50.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Nov 18, 2013

Viewed again, far from the madding crowd and general hoo-ha of Sundance, it stands up much better than expected.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 17, 2013

Their world seems to hover between their own fantasy and the castrated culture which Fontaine creates. A nothingness envelops them

Full Review | Nov 14, 2013

Melodramatic with a plot more suited to a TV soapie, Christopher Hampton's adaptation of Doris Lessing's 2003 novella The Grandmothers is overblown and totally unbelievable

The film never musters the humor nor the sex appeal to carry off its study of ultra-Freudian arrested development.

Full Review | Nov 4, 2013

Adore is just completely absurd and melodramatic, where major things happen to our protagonists and they just brush it off.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Oct 18, 2013

Fontaine has trouble balancing the complexities. Both women express a world of conflicting emotions in their gazes, but the younger men seem lost in their roles.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 17, 2013

Adore is nothing more than a hateful excuse for a piece of cinema. Avoid it at all costs.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/10 | Oct 14, 2013

Watchable soapy melodrama enlivened by gorgeous photography and strong performances from all four leads ...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 10, 2013

With its soap-operatic performances, bonkbuster plotline and sparkling seafront setting, all 'Adore' really lacks is a cameo from Alf Stewart

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Oct 10, 2013

Would Fontaine have made this film if the mothers looked like and were as old as Barbra Streisand and Kathy Bates and the sons weren't built like surfers? Of course not.

Full Review | Oct 4, 2013

Sets the bar pretty low, and achieves its goal.

Full Review | Sep 26, 2013

'Adore' has received mostly negative reviews. The dismissiveness suggests a discomfort with the subject matter -- an unwillingness to process this particular fiction by writers who on other days grapple agreeably with haunted houses and singing chipmunks.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 23, 2013

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Movie Review: Adore (2013)

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• 3 responses
• --> December 30, 2013

Loving mothers.

Early in 2013, a small film, Adore , based on the novella “The Grandmothers” by Doris Lessing played at the Sundance Film Festival. It screened in limited release in the US in September, and then quietly went to DVD. The film takes on an uncomfortable story of two grown women — the best of childhood friends — who engage in semi-incestuous affairs with each other’s sons. It’s probably for the best that this one slipped under the radar, as it doesn’t leave much of an impression beyond the same queasy feeling that comes from reading the blurb describing its subject matter.

Adore begins with some establishing scene work between two best friends in their adolescence. Roz and Lil are clearly inseparable pals who live by the shore and are blissfully happy in their simple, picturesque homes by the sea. As adults, they’ve remained in these homes and now each have son in their late teens/early twenties. Roz (Robin Wright) is married to Harold (Ben Mendelsohn) and they share their home with their son, Tom (James Frecheville); Lil (Naomi Watts) recently lost her husband and grieves his death with her son, Ian (Xavier Samuel).

The film focuses at first on the super-close friendship between Roz and Lil, and then on the corresponding friendship between Ian and Tom. These four are the central characters in the film, and any secondary characters to the film are also secondary in the stories of their lives. Roz and Harold’s relationship is strained, as he feels she is on loan to him rather than being his full-time wife. He has just accepted a job in Sydney and wants to move the family there; Roz is skeptical and hesitant. Lil, meanwhile, is being courted by Saul (Gary Sweet), but doesn’t share his feelings, and is shocked when he accuses her of a relationship closer than friendship with Roz. This similar accusation comes from Harold, who thinks Roz prefers Lil to him and their marriage. Tom and Ian spend their days surfing and swimming, carefree young men who are likened to young gods by their mothers. Clearly, this is a relationship born of the closeness their mothers have shared since their early teens. Indeed, the four are a close-knit group, sharing laughs, dances, wine, and conversations women typically have on girls’ night, when the boys (sons, at that) are DEFINITELY nowhere to be found. Yet, both sons remain, comfortably discussing topics that would make most sons cringe and scurry away. (Some of these topics certainly make viewers cringe to think of the possibility of similar conversations with our own mothers.)

One late night, Lil leaves to sleep in her own bed and Ian remains behind at Tom’s house. Ian makes the first move on Roz, whose husband is away in Sydney, preparing for their move and his new job. At first, the intimacy is hesitant, but soon, both are fully engaged. Tom wakes with a hangover and goes into the kitchen for a drink, spying his mother leaving Ian’s room with her jeans in hand. Furious, he leaves the house, and goes to the water for some solace; in the morning, he wakes on the beach and determinedly walks to Lil’s house, where he lets himself in. They talk innocently for a while before Tom kisses Lil. When she protests, he reveals what’s happened between Roz and Ian. It appears that both boys have been harboring feelings for each other’s mother, and now that Ian has acted on his, Tom is inclined to do the same. At first, Lil is appalled by the suggestion, but gives in to her own feelings of attraction to the boy who might as well be her own son.

The movie examines the emotional difficulty of such arrangements between two sets of close friends and between the lovers themselves. Once both pairs decide to engage in these scandalous affairs, the foursome become a metaphorical island, similar to the floating dock on which they spend hours upon hours lounging in the water. There is an inordinate amount of time spent on actors/actresses looking wistfully, pensively out into nothing while dealing with their feelings about their various interactions. Of course, relationships such as these cannot carry on forever, so there are more secondary characters brought into the picture, such as actress Mary (Jessica Tovey) for Tom and her friend Hannah (Sophie Lowe) for Ian. As expected, their existence complicates the relationships among the four central characters, and Adore shifts to focus on how they attempt to move on with their lives in an increasingly stagnant situation.

A very bad decision.

Robin Wright plays her role with strength, yet it often comes across as cold and unemotional. Roz is the “sensible” one, trying to make the “right” decisions, while Naomi Watts’s Lil is more of a girl-woman who has allowed her feelings to rule her life. She is more emotional, teary-eyed during many scenes in which Roz comforts her and tries to convince her that they have to be more responsible — basically, act more like the grown women they are. The boys are clearly their mothers’ sons, as Tom is more subdued, while Ian is more passionate about his feelings for Roz. Tom drifts back and forth; Ian fights for his relationship with Roz against her insistence that they should remain apart.

The problem with this film isn’t that you don’t believe their feelings for each other; it’s that you don’t really care all that much about them. Adore is more about melodramatic interactions and situations than it is about the effect these affairs have on their lives. These decisions really don’t seem to impact them at all; Roz, Lil, Ian, and Tom prefer to be isolated with each other, and the story gives them that. You hope for more intensity from a film that tackles a subject like this, but it just turns out to be a basic story of forbidden love with minimal guilt or consideration for those who are hurt by it. It’s not a terrible film, but it’s just not very engaging, either. Instead, like its various secondary characters, Adore drifts away with the tide, easily forgotten.

Tagged: friendship , mother , novel adaptation , son

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'Movie Review: Adore (2013)' have 3 comments

December 30, 2013 @ 6:59 pm Talo

Naomi Watts impresses like a pretentious snob.

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December 31, 2013 @ 6:33 pm Maria Federowicz

Awesome job, Pas! :)

March 19, 2017 @ 11:35 am Haya

The review put my feelings exactly to words. Couldn’t have done a better job explaining it. Absolutely excellent writer.

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Mommy issues, or: it's always sonny in cougartown.

Ella Taylor

It's a family film: Xavier Samuel and Robin Wright play one of two intergenerational couples at the center of Anne Fontaine's Adore, a film that dares to ask: "Does it count as a mommy issue if you're sleeping with her lifelong best friend?" Exclusive Media hide caption

It's a family film: Xavier Samuel and Robin Wright play one of two intergenerational couples at the center of Anne Fontaine's Adore, a film that dares to ask: "Does it count as a mommy issue if you're sleeping with her lifelong best friend?"

• Director: Anne Fontaine
• Genre: Drama
• Running Time: 100 minutes

Rated R for risibility. (We kid, we kid. It's for sexual content and language. And risibility.)

With: Robin Wright , Naomi Watts , Xavier Samuel , James Frecheville

Overused and much misused, the word "provocative" has become a double-edged sword, especially when it's swung in the direction of independent cinema. At its best, the genuinely provocative film — off the top of my head, anything by Bunuel, Shaun of the Dead , Holy Motors -- shocks in order to expand our vision of the world it encompasses. At its most dispiriting, it's an exercise in cheap thrillage, designed to goose a presumptively stuffy bourgeois audience while positioning a director as some sort of iconoclast. (Steve McQueen's Shame comes to mind, along with Leaving Las Vegas. )

But faux provocation is found most commonly and, perhaps, forgivably, among novice directors bent on getting noticed — and Anne Fontaine has no such excuse. The French filmmaker showed early promise with the goofily anarchic 1997 comedy Dry Cleaning , about an ordinary couple who become obsessed with a drag artiste.

The movies that followed ( Nathalie , Chloe ) lean toward the merely naughty, and Fontaine's latest, Adore , seems downright desperate to wave her fetish for "illicit" desire under our noses without having much to say about it.

Not having read The Grandmothers , the Doris Lessing novella that inspired the movie, I can't say whether the source material bears more or less of the blame. But Fontaine's treatment of this foray into cougar country plays like a romance novel from the genre's bodice-ripping margins.

To begin with, how painful is it to watch actors as intelligent as Naomi Watts and Robin Wright mug their way through the story of two hard-bodied middle-aged Australian besties, Lil and Roz, hitting the sack with one another's teenaged sons?

Naomi Watts and James Frecheville are the other two participants in Adore's love quadrangle, about which we really resisted the urge to write captions involving the words "Lambada" and "the Forbidden Dance." Exclusive Media hide caption

Naomi Watts and James Frecheville are the other two participants in Adore's love quadrangle, about which we really resisted the urge to write captions involving the words "Lambada" and "the Forbidden Dance."

Tom (James Frecheville) and Ian (Xavier Samuel) are monosyllabic surfer dudes; having lost his father at a young age, Ian mopes around in a permanent broody funk, while Tom has no personality to speak of.

This is Fontaine's first English-language movie, and its credibility is not helped by Christopher Hampton's lame dialogue, which appears to have been drawn from a Harlequin tip-sheet. "What've we done?" "Crossed a line." "It can't happen again." "No, of course it can't."

The women snicker a bit about this, and about Roz's husband's suspicion that the two women are sexually involved: "He's not saying we're lezzos, is he?" they snort, and fall about laughing at the outlandish thought.

Then away they go again with the offspring, with frequent pauses to sun their four sated bods on an oceanside dock. Time stands still when the heart wants what it wants, and isn't that romantic and brave — so long as it stays heterosexual? And so long as the cougars are smart, the youngsters dim, and the middle-aged husbands and suitors just this side of pathetic.

There's a germ of genuine transgression to be located in this four-way affair, and it has to do with the overlap between maternal and carnal love. But it's less explored here than it is sidelined, not least by the camera's obsessive travel over the sons' gym-pumped torsos as they drape themselves around the house like off-duty calendar boys. Next of kin or no, what self-respecting mature woman would carry on with such vacuous himbos for more than a night, let alone several years?

After much shirt-removal, bun-baring and vigorous congress-having, all set against an idyllic background of sea and sand, the movie tacks hard into self-serious waters, piling on the consequences by the ton. The ocean begins to roil, Tom takes off for Sydney and finds a saucy nymph his own age to be boring with, and when Ian follows suit, the hand-wringing begins in earnest.

Will Lil and Roz pursue their forbidden passion to the bitter end, or settle for becoming the world's sexiest grannies? I'd tell you, but I'm not a hundred percent sure you're still with me.

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“Adore” movie review: Two moms, two sons and a…

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“adore” movie review: two moms, two sons and a doozy of a do si do.

French director Anne Fontaine makes her English-language debut with the help of Christopher Hampton, who adapted Doris Lessing’s novella “The Grandmothers.”

“Adore” is gorgeous to watch, fascinating for its taboo set-up and occasionally absurd.

Lil (Naomi Watts) and Roz (Robin Wright) have been fast friends since they were sun-kissed girls together. They stayed by the sea. Both got married. Each had a son. Their families became even closer after Lil’s husband died. Sons Tom (James Frecheville) and Ian (Xavier Samuels) have grown into best friends and handsome young men.

Ben Mendelsohn portrays Roz’s husband, a drama professor who gets a great teaching gig in Sydney. It’s a convenient way to gently nudge him out of the picture for a spell, so that the profoundly unconventional can unfold.

Fontaine chose not to shoot “Adore” in France, she has said, to avoid becoming too psychological. Of course, a little introspection on the part of the mothers might have gone a long way in making the movie more complex and truthful.

If there’s melodrama to be had, it often emanates from Tom and Ian. They’re the agents of the affairs, at least to the degree we don’t think of them as abused or coerced.

What’s shocking here is how not shocking all this is. Watts and Wright provide interesting portraits of two friends who really do appear to have an unconditional fondness for each other. They make the unfathomable believable — almost.

“We’ve crossed a line,” says Roz to Lil early on. Indeed. And the remarkable thing about “Adore” is they and their lovers continue pushing boundaries for years.

Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567, [email protected] , twitter.com/bylisakennedy

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Time Out says

It’s the classic Aussie actor’s career arc: a stint on ‘Home & Away’, a handful of homegrown movies then it’s off to Hollywood. But judging from her recent performances in ‘Diana’ and this dire son-swapping Australian melodrama, could Naomi Watts be the first to go full circle and end up back where she started? Watts plays Lil, a widower whose contented life in a miscellaneous well-to-do beachfront community is spent in the company of best friend Roz (Robin Wright) and their hunky, surf-bum sons Ian (Xavier Samuel) and Tom (James Frecheville). But after a pair of late-night drunken encounters spiral into something more serious, the mothers discover that they’re both having affairs with the other’s offspring. And like any self-respecting Sheila, they decide to go with it. ‘Coco Before Chanel’ director Anne Fontaine’s sun-kissed anti-romance has so far screened under three different titles – ‘Perfect Mothers’, ‘Two Mothers’ and now ‘Adore’ – but it’ll take more than a cosmetic alteration to lift this lifeless, sagging effort. Each of the characters is either obnoxious – the mothers are forever worrying that the townsfolk see them as ‘a pair of lezzos’ – or horrendously dull: the male leads don’t do anything except surf, pout, shag and look good in swimwear. To add insult to injury, it goes on forever, tracking the characters over an increasingly excruciating ten-year span. Still, if Watts really does want her old job back, it’s hard to imagine a more appropriate calling card. With its soap-operatic performances, bonkbuster plotline and sparkling seafront setting, all ‘Adore’ really lacks is a cameo from Alf Stewart.

Release Details

• Duration: 100 mins

Cast and crew

• Director: Anne Fontaine
• Screenwriter: Christopher Hampton
• Robin Wright
• Naomi Watts
• Xavier Samuel
• James Frecheville

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Movie Review

A Valentine for One, a Mother’s Day Card for Another

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By A.O. Scott

• Sept. 5, 2013

“Adore” sounds like a brand of perfume or a Manhattan restaurant that opened during the stand-alone verb craze a few years back. The movie, based on the Doris Lessing novella “The Grandmothers,” was shown in festivals as “Two Mothers.” Plenty of variations on its theme of intergenerational lust can be found on the Internet, though you may want to clear your browser history after you’re done searching for them.

In any case, “Adore,” the first English-language feature from the French actress and director Anne Fontaine (“Coco Before Chanel,” “The Girl From Monaco”), has less in common with digital-era pornography than with the soft-core skinema of the 1970s. Suffused with golden seaside light (the setting is a jewel of a bay in Australia) and prone to lingering over tanned bodies, green salads and glasses of white wine, the film embeds its erotic explorations in an atmosphere of luxury and leisure.

Not that there is anything frivolous or frolicsome about the parallel love affairs that blossom between two friends and their almost-grown sons. One of the things that makes “Adore,” which was written by Christopher Hampton, hard to take seriously is how seriously it takes itself, how utterly purged of humor or credible human complication the drama at its center turns out to be. It is a farce acted in slow motion, not so much with a straight face (which farce always requires) as with a dazed expression of earnest cluelessness.

Roz (Robin Wright) and Lil (Naomi Watts) are childhood friends who spawn a matched pair of tawny surfers, Tom (James Frecheville) and Ian (Xavier Samuel). Not all by themselves, of course. Lil’s husband dies in a car accident when the boys are young, after which she is timidly courted by a dull fellow named Saul (Gary Sweet), who is clearly unsuitable because his name has one too many letters in it. Roz’s husband (Ben Mendelsohn), a theater director, is offered a plum job in Sydney, which he foolishly accepts, leaving his wife and son unattended in a sensual paradise with a pair of sexy neighbors. One thing leads to another, and, before long, late-night sneaking between conveniently adjacent cliff-side houses turns into something a little more open, at least among the four principal participants.

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Review: Adore

By Sarah Mankoff on September 5, 2013

For a movie so easy on the eyes, Adore is incredibly hard to watch. Adapted from a Doris Lessing novella about two childhood friends who have affairs with each other’s sons, the film never musters the humor nor the sex appeal to carry off its study of ultra-Freudian arrested development. Director and co-writer Anne Fontaine forgoes character development for mood, spending nearly all of the film’s 111 minutes lingering on the tanned pores of her four stars. Mothers Roz (Robin Wright) and Lil (Naomi Watts) and their sons Ian (Xavier Samuel) and Tom (James Frecheville) exist in a bubble of privilege, filling their days with long walks on the beach and sipping white wine, while their husbands remain conspicuously absent (Lil’s husband died in a car accident when Ian was little, and Roz’s is off teaching in Sydney). But the women's chic office jobs never interfere with their social lives, so every night is date night.

The film begins with a sequence in which Roz and Lil as romping preteens seamlessly morph into the perpetually sunbathing adults they are now. This stylish elision of time is repeated a few minutes later when Fontaine similarly skips over Ian and Tom’s adolescences. In conflating both the mothers’ and the sons’ childhoods at the very beginning of the film, everything that could’ve been transgressive about their intergenerational pairings is muted. Neither woman is disconcerted by their son’s impulse to sleep with their surrogate mother, and any guilt that Lil or Roz convey stems from what they describe as a fear of robbing the boys of their youth.

Not that there’s much to lose—Ian and Tom are probably about 20 years old, but there’s no sign of coltishness in either Samuel’s or Frecheville’s performances, only strapping muscles and chiseled jawlines. Mercifully, the actresses are as fine as ever: Watts has the hint of a beautiful woman aging, unused to such desperation in her loneliness, and Wright is truly enigmatic, delivering a surprisingly strong and powerful performance for a film and a script this superficial.

But Adore ’s looks do deliver, and under Christophe Beaucarne’s beautiful cinematography the incestuous quartet is stunning to a fault. The cove in which the characters spend most of their time cradles the four of them in golden light, rocking them to and fro in beautiful teal waters, and reassuring them that when you look this good, you don’t ever have to grow up.

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Naomi Watts and Robin Wright deliver riveting performances in Adore, a sensual and provocative drama about two lifelong friends who find unexpected happiness in relationships that cross the bounds of convention. An unpredictable tale of misguided love and a heartfelt celebration of the enduring nature of female friendship, Adore is the English-speaking directorial debut of Anne Fontaine. Set in an Australian seaside town, Adore establishes an aura of fable as it follows two women’s plunge into uncharted waters. Watts and Wright fearlessly engage with the physical and psychological components of the story, capturing the complex emotions and powerful desires driving their characters. Strong performances from Xavier Samuel and James Frecheville complement Watts and Wright. Adore radiates with intoxicating sensuality while exploring the intricacies of love, family, morality and passion.

Win Big Prizes from Adore

Naomi Watts and Robin Wright star in this drama about two mothers who fall for each other's sons, in theaters this weekend.

Adore Photo Gallery Featuring Naomi Watts and Robin Wright

Two women plunge into uncharted waters when they enter into relationships that cross the bounds of convention.

Adore Trailer Starring Naomi Watts and Robin Wright

Plus, we have a poster for Anne Fontaine's drama about two mothers who begin to fall for each other's sons, debuting in theaters September 6th.

Two Mothers International Trailer

Naomi Watts and Robin Wright star in this drama about two best friends who fall for each other's sons.

The Grandmothers Oceanside Set Photos with Naomi Watts and Robin Wright

The two actors team for this romantic drama from director Anne Fontaine, about lifelong friends who fall for each other's sons.

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Common Sense Media Review

Unsatisfying but sexed-up drama tackles controversial theme.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Adore is an ultimately unsatisfying indie drama (based on a story by Doris Lessing) about a friendship that spans from childhood to adulthood. The movie deals with mature themes, including adultery, infidelity, and sex (frequent but not overly graphic; backsides are shown, but no…

Why Age 17+?

Liberal use of "f--k," plus "s--t" and one "c--t."

Several scenes in which couples are shown having sex, sometimes with their backs

Mothers drink with their college-aged sons (they're under 21 for most of the

Toyota, Apple, and Saab all make appearances.

Some loud arguments; a surfing accident is shown, with the man wiping out and hi

Any Positive Content?

Amid themes of adultery and infidelity, there's a message that friendships r

Roz and Lil are loyal to each other, sometimes to their detriment. They also, at

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Several scenes in which couples are shown having sex, sometimes with their backsides exposed. Viewers don't see genitalia, but sex acts are simulated.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Mothers drink with their college-aged sons (they're under 21 for most of the movie), sometimes to the point of inebriation. Some cigarette smoking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Violence & scariness.

Some loud arguments; a surfing accident is shown, with the man wiping out and hitting rocks.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Amid themes of adultery and infidelity, there's a message that friendships require commitment and honest communication.

Positive Role Models

Roz and Lil are loyal to each other, sometimes to their detriment. They also, at least when their kids were younger, seemed to be attentive, thoughtful mothers.

Parents need to know that Adore is an ultimately unsatisfying indie drama (based on a story by Doris Lessing) about a friendship that spans from childhood to adulthood. The movie deals with mature themes, including adultery, infidelity, and sex (frequent but not overly graphic; backsides are shown, but no fronts) between couples who are decades apart in age and, more important, know each other almost like family. It may be too confusing for younger teens and tweens. Expect plenty of swearing (particularly "f--k"), as well as cigarette smoking and some drinking, including by characters who are in college but not yet 21. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say (2)
• Kids say (1)

Based on 2 parent reviews

Unhealthy film, also suitable for older and mature adolescents

What's the story.

Roz ( Robin Wright ) and Lil ( Naomi Watts ) have been friends since they were little, keeping each other company in a picturesque Australian town by the ocean. When Lil loses her husband in an accident, Roz takes on the extra duty of helping Lil care for her young son, Ian, who's the same age as her own child, Tom. But as they grow up, the lines blur among the foursome. Now young men, Ian (Xavier Samuel) and Tom (James Frecheville) have become attracted to each other's mothers. Tom crosses the line first, kissing Roz, who reciprocates despite being married. Then Ian, angry at having discovered the tryst between his best friend and his mother, makes a play for Lil, who's hungry for his attentions. But how can this all last? And should it?

Is It Any Good?

Director Anne Fontaine goes out of her way to bathe nearly every frame of ADORE in beautiful light and colors; the sea by which this seaside town sits is as much a part of the movie as the actors. It ebbs and flows like time and bears witness to the passions that unfold. But all that beauty can't take away from the illicit and uncomfortable couplings that are at the heart of the story.

Both Roz and Lil fall for men whom they helped raise, acting as their secondary mothers. Given this set up, you'd expect the story to forge ahead with tension and momentum, but no. Wright and Watts try to infuse their roles with gravitas and complexity, but the script is leaden, and the young actors playing their sons are wooden. What could have been an exploration of the surprising, destabilizing nature of love ends up seemingly more about romp and circumstance and not much else. Doris Lessing's story, which inspired the movie, deserves so much more.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how the movie portrays sex . Is it meaningful? How does it impact the relationships in the movie? Parents, talk to your teens about your own values regarding sex and relationships.

Are May-December love affairs doomed from the start? What is the movie's stand on the idea?

Why do you think Roz and Lil decide to be involved with each other's sons? Is this a breach of trust?

Movie Details

• In theaters : September 6, 2013
• On DVD or streaming : December 10, 2013
• Cast : James Frecheville , Naomi Watts , Robin Wright , Xavier Samuel
• Director : Anne Fontaine
• Inclusion Information : Female directors, Female actors
• Studio : Exclusive Media
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 111 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : sexual content and language
• Last updated : May 6, 2024

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‘Adore’: movie review

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Pepé and “Adore” have something else in common: They’re both stinkers.

The movie, though, comes from a sweet-smelling pedigree. Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing wrote the novella that director Anne Fontaine clunkily puts on screen. The screenplay was co-written by Fontaine and playwright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton (“Dangerous Liaisons,” “A Dangerous Method”). Yet that cannot help this embarrassingly breathless portrayal of middle-aged crazy.

Lil (Naomi Watts) and Roz (Robin Wright) are life-long pals, seen frolicking in New South Wales, Australia, as preteens and maturing into friends supporting each other through thick and thin. Lil is left widowed when her husband is in a car crash, and must raise her son alone. Not long after, Roz’s husband (Ben Mendelsohn) accepts a job that requires him to relocate, something his wife and son will not do. The pieces are in place.

For what? First, for a bit of ogling of the boys as they surf. “They’re like young gods!” coos Roz, as she watches Lil’s now 20-year-old son Ian (Xavier Samuel) and her own twentyish son Tom (James Frecheville) stride ashore. The bland, affectless “young gods” she’s referring to spend long days lounging with their mums on a raft. Then, when he’s alone with Lil, Tom abruptly kisses her.

Even without knowing her son has gotten it on with her best pal, Roz soon begins an affair with Ian. Eventually, they all know. “We’ve crossed a line,” one of the women says. But after a moment’s pause, they’re back at it, and acceptance sinks in. As time passes and the couples try to extricate themselves from each other, they can’t, even as the boys marry a pair of nice girls their own age and start families. Some things, apparently, you just can’t get out of your head.

Sadly, that includes the earnestly soft-porn dialogue in “Adore,” as well as the Cougar Town blues the women play on their actorly heartstrings, and the wooden performances of Samuel and Frecheville. (Despite the young men’s different hair color, they couldn’t be more indistinguishable if they had staples in the middle of their centerfolds.) Watts is capable of great depths of emotion and Wright always conveys an incisive intelligence. Each tries, but each should have known better.

Though Fontaine makes sure the beaches are sun-dappled and the women’s shared house comes off like a sandy paradise, the movie is like the early-’80s groaner “Summer Lovers” with wrinkle lines. Hooray for the freedom and beauty of older women — a demographic that deserves better than the deplorable “Adore.”

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Home » Review » Movie » Adore

Unfortunately Adore ’s promising premise never fully ripens into something worth biting into.

Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival under the name Two Mothers (an arguably more fitting title) has been since changed to Adore , Anne Fontaine’s film about two best friends who end up in relationships with each other’s sons. Due to the on-the-nose dialog the characters are not able grow beyond two dimensional, and although the film begins as a wild ride with a tantalizing setup in tow, it puts itself in cruise control for most of the way.

Lil ( Naomi Watts ) and Roz ( Robin Wright ) have never parted ways since growing up together in a serene Australian beach town. The two best friends are now neighbors and each have a son of their own, who are now young adults and have also remained best friends since childhood. From the very beginning you could sense an offbeat relationship between Lil and Roz, which is only magnified when Lil’s husband passes away and the two get even closer. While they both deny that any sexual attraction between them exists, Roz’s husband believes otherwise.

But as it turns out, the sexual attractions that unfold are even more taboo than one would have initially thought. One of the first indications of an attraction between Roz and Lil’s son Ian ( Xavier Samuel ) is when they share a smoke together, something that makes Roz feel sinful because she has not smoked in such a long time, but Ian assures her that feeling sinful is not a bad thing. Flirting quickly escalades into a sexual encounter that is witnessed by Roz’s son Tom ( James Frecheville ), who immediately makes his intentions with Lil abundantly clear.

Adore plays out only a little less soap opera- esque than the story sounds. First of all, everything mentioned takes place in the first thirty minutes of the film, allowing opportunity for the story to develop when the film jumps ahead two years after the initial encounter. Secondly, the characters are wise enough to realize that the age gap will eventually become a factor, though it does not make the situation any less difficult for everyone involved.

However, the film cannot completely rid itself of its melodramatic tent poles. Sure, the story carries on but nothing that happens outside the first thirty minutes is at all surprising or half as exciting as what came before it. Adore is very unbalanced in its emotions by coming off far too dramatic in some scenes while being too nonchalant during others.

There is so much beauty packed in every aspect of Adore that it actually becomes a little overwhelming. Residing on a postcard beach that is completely surrounded by crystal clear water makes it easy for the cinematographer Christophe Beaucarne to capture the stunning imagery. There is rarely a scene where the sun is not shinning or the water begging to be occupied. Though the attractiveness does not stop with scenery, the chiseled young men look like they walked straight from the runway, even their own mothers (who are equally as gorgeous) comment on how they “look like young gods”. I realize that it sounds like I am complaining about how everything looks beautiful, but aside from its unconventional setup nearly everything else found in the film is too perfect and calculated. Adore seems to reside in a fantasy world that is proven when the characters never seem to age along with the timeline.

Considering Adore is based off a novel written by a female and also directed by one, you would not assume the female leads would be so utterly inert. Both mothers have seemingly no control over the situation and easily give into the sons desires without much of a fight. The film does not do itself any favors by completely missing the emotional angle that it tries so hard to attain and instead generating unintentional humor. Unfortunately Adore ’s promising premise never fully ripens into something worth biting into.

Adore trailer:

Adore Movie review

Adore Movie

Who's Involved:

Sophie Lowe, Naomi Watts, Ben Mendelsohn, Robin Wright, Xavier Samuel, James Frecheville, Anne Fontaine, Christopher Hampton, Jessica Tovey, Gary Sweet

Release Date:

Friday, September 6, 2013 Limited

Plot: What's the story about?

Tale of love, lust and the power of friendship charts the unconventional and passionate affairs of two lifelong friends who fall in love with each other’s sons.

from sundance.org

3.54 / 5 stars ( 24 users)

Poll: Will you see Adore?

Who stars in Adore: Cast List

Naomi Watts

Eastern Promises, The Divergent Series: Allegiant  

Robin Wright

Here, Damsel  

Ben Mendelsohn

The King, The Marsh King’s Daughter  

Xavier Samuel

Fury, Mr. Church  

Sophie Lowe ... Hannah

Above Suspicion, The Dive  

James Frecheville

The First Time, The Drop  

Alexandra's Project  

Jessica Tovey ... Mary

Tracks, Beast No More  

Who's making Adore: Crew List

A look at the Adore behind-the-scenes crew and production team. The film's director Anne Fontaine last directed Gemma Bovery and My Worst Nightmare . The film's writer Christopher Hampton last wrote The Father and A Dangerous Method .

Anne Fontaine

Screenwriter

Christopher Hampton

Exclusive Releasing

Production Company

Hope Town Entertainment

Mon Voisin Productions

Watch Adore Trailers & Videos

Theatrical Trailer #1

Production: what we know about adore, filming timeline.

To premiere at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival (out of competition).

Adore Release Date: When was the film released?

Adore was a Limited release in 2013 on Friday, September 6, 2013 . There were 14 other movies released on the same date, including Riddick , Things Never Said and Salinger . As a Limited release, Adore will only be shown in select movie theaters across major markets. Please check Fandango and Atom Tickets to see if the film is playing in your area.

Adore DVD & Blu-ray Release Date: When was the film released?

Adore was released on DVD & Blu-ray on Tuesday, December 10 , 2013 .

Q&A Asked about Adore

Seen the movie? Rate It!

Also known as

• Two Mothers

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Follow the Updates

• Sun., Oct. 13, 2013 from Amazon
• added the US soundtrack release date of September 24, 2013
• added the US DVD release date of December 10, 2013
• Sat., Aug. 24, 2013 from exclusivemedia.com
• added a link from adoremovie.com
• added a link from facebook.com
• added photos to the film's gallery
• Tue., Jul. 9, 2013
• added Theatrical Trailer #1 to trailers & videos
• Thu., Jun. 20, 2013 from Movie Poster Awards
• added a poster to the gallery

Looking for more information on Adore?

Official movie site + social media links.

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By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

At Sundance, where the first showing was nearly laughed off the screen, Adore , based on the Doris Lessing novella The Grandmothers , was known as Two Mothers . You should know it as something to avoid. Though it sure is purty. The setting is a golden bay in western Australia where besties, Lil (Naomi Watts) and Roz (Robin Wright), lounge their gym-toned bodies on beaches and harbor a lesbian yen they never act upon. Nothing happens even after Lil’s husband dies in a car wreck and Roz’s better half (Ben Mendelsohn) takes a job out of town. What are these two mothers to do? Why not have sex with their sons, both young surfer gods. Each other’s sons, I mean. Lil’s boy, Ian (Xavier Samuel), gets Roz in the sack first. Then Lil, simmering with revenge, thinks it’s only right to get intimate with Roz’s son, Tom (James Frecheville). Then each couple falls hard. Really. They love each other. And it lasts for years. Are you with me? I’ll just be a minute more. Watts and Wright are two of the best and most beautiful actresses anywhere. And it’s no hardship watching them writhe around with naked boys. But to what purpose? Director Anne Fontaine ( Coco Before Chanel ) takes a solemn approach that won’t quit. Working from a script by the gifted Christopher Hampton ( Dangerous Liaisons, Atonement ), who seems to have traded his wit for a paycheck, Fontaine manages the trick of making sex joyless. Like porn. Then she tops that by draining her film of variety, longing and feminist insight. Like farce. Ouch.

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