The Adjuster

NEW 35mm PRINT! ►  Atom Egoyan’s dreamy, disturbing and darkly (very darkly) funny fourth feature certified the young Canadian filmmaker as a genuine international sensation, and was widely hailed as his best work yet. Shot in scrumptious, elegant widescreen — and screening here in a gorgeous new 35mm print, courtesy the Toronto International Film Festival Group — The Adjuster has Elias Koteas as insurance adjuster Noah Render, saviour and seducer of benumbed clients whose homes have been destroyed by fire. Arsinée Khanjian is his neglected wife Hera, a film censor who surreptitiously videotapes the violent pornography she watches at work and smuggles it home for the consumption of her sister, a Lebanese refugee given to ritualistically burning photos of bombed-out Beirut. Egoyan’s deliciously twisted plot sets this odd and unhappy family careening on a collision course with the perverse lives of Bubba (Maury Chaykin) and Mimi (Gabrielle Rose), a filthy-rich couple who amuse themselves enacting a series of bizarre and often expensive fantasies. "The Adjuster is undeniably Atom Egoyan’s best film to date, more fully exploring the themes advanced in his earlier works and more impressively displaying his acute visual skills. Technically, it’s terrific; intellectually, it’s imposing; emotionally, it’s unsettling" (Rick Groen, Globe and Mail). Colour, 35mm. 102 mins.