IMDb user comments for
The Adjuster (1991)

advertisement

Filter:

Best Chronological Prolific Authors Loved It Hated It Hide Spoilers:

Page 1 of 3:

[1] [2] [3]

Index

22 comments in total

---

12 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
exceptional, 26 November 2004
Author: damoran04 from Israel

this early atom egoyan film is truly the best of his movies that i have seen, and they are "exotica", "felecia's journey", "the sweet hereafter", "speaking parts" and of course "adjuster". egoyan has a very special gift and that is the way he tells the stories, a way that forces the characters to do things you wouldn't think they'll do, or do them in a very un-expected way. egoyan drives you into the story using all the tools included in a film director's case: beautiful, almost dreamy photography, haunting mysterious music,careful attention to movement and color. that is the case with all his films but in "adjuster" this unique style of his really comes to a peak. the strange story of an insurance adjuster being eaten inside by guilt and fear seems to take place in a world where morality and good are disappearing slowly, living the honest man to burn is his own hell, created by his inability to read the reality that lies before him. this is always a very good story material for films, because it allows the filmmaker an investigation of the psyche, tormented, searching, afraid and yet unable to tie all ropes together to make sense of the world. i recommend watching "the adjuster" and then watching it again after a day or two. if you dig movies, you will not forget this one. an exceptional experience.

---

7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Extraordinary, 20 August 2001
Author: scr1ve from England

(I can't believe the negative comments I have read on this page. I mean, sure, peoples opinions are allowed to differ- thats what makes this world so great blah blah blah etc... but this film is incredible and it would be a shame that someone would disregard renting it out on video because someone had bad-mouthed it here.)

This film is set firmly in Egoyan country. We have dysfunction, we have recorded media, we have beautiful shots, a wonderful score, great dialogue, fantastic use of silence (watch out for that one) and overall- you can feel an almost religious intensity beaming through the celluloid. My memory of this film consists of much more than just a plot- it is the warmth, the colours that stick with you too. One more thing... Tarkovsky said that films best asset was its ability to sculpt in time. Egoyans measured rhythm is hard to resist (obviously not for some people).

It seems to me though, that the complaints here are not to do with the films form. Of course it is well made. They have problems with the script, or at least the order of things. Well, for me- the chaos and strange order of things in this film keeps it gripping- apart from the fact that you never know what is going to come next- isn't this half chaotic order a better rendition of reality than most? The content is also 'strange' and not really in keeping with 'popular taste'. So if you are easily offended, or more at home with Spielberg- then please feel free to stick to him. But this is brave, sumptious, disturbing, invigorating, and beautiful territory. I was pleased to visit it.

P.S. Elias Koteas' performance is probably one of my top five favourite performances ever, up there with Takeshi Kitano in Bad Cop and Christopher Walken in King of New York. Stoic, tragic, he hardly puts a foot wrong.

---

6 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
A gem, as always, from Egoyan., 17 March 2001

Author: kergillian (kergillian@hotmail.com) from Montreal, Canada

The one thing I can always count on from Atom Egoyan is an interesting film. This is a brilliant, and very dark, comedy with a sensationally twisted plot, fabulous cast, and great cinematography. Egoyan's use of light is excellent, as is the wonderful setting and scenery. This film is so imaginative that it's beyond a story told on the screen...visual poetry. And the frightening thing is that as good as this film is, it's not even his best effort. The pace was a bit slow at times, and at times the plot seemed to stagger a bit. His film-making was much sharper in Exotica, which is my personal favourite. But the plot is so well devised (odd and twisted, and full of intricate details that are hard to really absorb the first time through) that it makes up for any lack of quality. Elias Koteas is really good in this; his best role save perhaps Fallen, and he outshines Arsinee Khanjian who didn't quite feel up to par. My favourite role in the film, however, was a fabulous performance by Maury Chaykin as an unbalanced former football player. The gasoline scene is the best in the film, and Chaykin's expression and lines are priceless. As well, look for Don McKellar's excellent, though unfortunately small role, as Tyler (the rookie censor). He's absolutely hilarious, and his delivery of dialogue is nothing short of brilliant. All i all, it's not Egoyan's best effort, which means it still stands above most films. A really good quality indie-film, with a *very* original plot, quirky and memorable characters, and a strong cast. An easy 8/10.

---

6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
My favorite Canadian movie of all time!!, 9 August 2005

Author: Spuzzlightyear from Vancouver

Words cannot express how much I love The Adjuster. It's actually been a while since I saw it, so I picked it up again, and well, fell in love with it once again. It's just that good.

The cast consists of a Canadian dream cast du jour: Elias Koteas! Don Mckellar! Maury Chaykin! Arsinée Khanjian! They're all DYNAMITE here, playing some low down creepy characters here.

Koteas plays the titular Adjuster in the movie, looking after people who've lost their houses in a fire. Khanjian plays his wife, who makes a living from being a censor for the government (!!), Don Mckellar plays the new censor that was hired who catches on very quickly how to move up in the world. I'd rather not get into Maury Chayken's character if you don't mind lol All of these characters intermingle with each other. There's not a huge story to be found here, more of a character study. And what a study it is, as you find out a little more about each character with every viewing, with some mysteries yet to reveal (What WAS with the Podiatrist?) Can't recommend this movie enough. I have to say this is Egoyan's crowning achievement, and I've been waiting for him to replicate it. (Instead, he's been giving us crap like Felicia's Journey)

---

7 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
complex but it all comes together, 13 November 2000
Author: jeffreyr

Theres so many threads to this movie you have to see it more than once to get the full effect. Elias Koteas gives a subtly painful performance as Noah, as you begin to see just what a complicated life he really has. His wife and sister in law are just as multilayered as he is. The themes of impulse and denial run throughout the picture, particularly in the film makers life where him and his wife act out their sexual phantasies with a minimum of shame. A great work of art by a great director. definitely not mainstream in scope or material. Maybe the quietest movie ever made about the nature of arousal

---

3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
A mysterious and hysterically dark tale of modernity, 7 August 2005

Author: nini_ten from NY

To respond to a previous review that wrote that the fact that the censor wife tapes porn from work to show her sister since they share everything together isn't convincing---in the film the wife explains to her boss that she shared what she learned from school to her sister because she couldn't go to school, and that it is like that from where they're from. Egoyan didn't specify where they were from, but it is Armenia. The way I see it, I am convinced because it is a matter of culture and family in a more depraved country, and I got it immediately, and the fact isn't that the sisters' bond is strange, but like the wife said, it is like that where she comes from. To me, the movie is an extreme dramatization of a man too involved in his work, which in the end destroys his life and family in a climate of heightened modernity and an inevitable air of danger. In one of the film's most gruesome scenes, a man is masturbating outside the glass slide doors of the living room at night while the wife's sister is watching one of the taped porn movies. In another scene, the "filmmaker" greets the family and gives them each an identical jacket, designed like tacky franchises sold in amusement parks. There's a certain vulnerability about the way the family members take the jacket, as if the scene is trying to express an awkward sorrow about mass franchise and how it's crudely threw at people and families. What I found very, very amused and surprised by is how throughout the film I expected, in the end, the obscene couple to be exposed to the family then shame and explanation could to be provided as punishment for their deceit and nightmarish violation---but when the husband finally confronts the "filmmaker" while he is about to burn down his living room, he is shown as simply, understandably, INSANE.

Their are certain unnecessary or unsubtle little spots of ambiguity in the film such as the wife's prior, semi-romantic encounter with her foot specialist on the subway, but then again, such details and the film's insistence in unpurifying EVERY relationship the adjuster has with his clients has its own reasons and means of defining and exposing the main characters that enhances the environment of robbed values the film so determinedly tries to create. Atom Egoyan stands out as a filmmaker of "ideas", and in this film as well as most of his images/pace/style express a lyrical modernity through a rich and mysterious vision. He is the most interesting provocateur.

---

3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
How can you place a dollar value on human suffering?, 16 March 1999

Author: Sean Rutledge (rutledgesean@hotmail.com) from Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Atom Egoyan is an absolute genius, but I find it somewhat difficult to discuss his films as they are so complex. He seems to make the kinds of movies where you walk out of the theater after it's over and all the parts are clear in your head, but you can't quite piece them all together. But you can't help but try. Sooner or later, everything falls into place, and sometimes it doesn't. Either way, Egoyan makes you really think about a lot of issues.

"The Adjuster" is about an insurance adjuster who helps victims of house fires get money from insurance companies. There is a really great parallel drawn between the adjuster, Noah, and Robin Hood. He quite frequently shoots arrows with his bow at a billboard sign that says "Sherwood Forest". He is essentially taking money from the rich insurance companies and giving it to the poor victims of fires. We also have Noah's voyeuristic wife Hara, who is a film censor for porn flicks. She films what they censor with a video camera so that her sister can see what she does, as she has always shared everything with her sister. There is an extreme sense of bareness of the characters lives in the film. This is reinforced by the vast, open, almost desert landscape around the suburb. They own the only house in this particular suburb, and it is in fact a model house. Even the books on the bookshelf inside are fake. All this seems to reinforce the lives that the characters live. This is a definite achievement from a cutting edge director.

---

3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
a resonant meditation on what's of value within us, around us, 14 January 2000

Author: sissypower from san diego

At the center of Egoyan's dark journey into moral and materialistic devastation is Elias Koteas' Noah, the mortal bearing the film's title, carrying its weight -- certainly delivering the goods in what must be considered his finest ninety-plus minutes on film. He never disappoints this viewer (his cameo turn as "the Kisser" in LaGravenese's LIVING OUT LOUD was a landmark in my memory simply as a point of relief, an answered prayer).

Mychael Danna's score and Steven Munro's sound design push THE ADJUSTER past the dream world threshold, unraveling it strand by strand to catch and spin in the viewer's subconscious. This is one you wont shake easily. Egoyan magic.

---

1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Challenging Art -- Good Times., 7 April 2005

Author: versatilentertainerextraordinair from Canada

What a unique and challenging story to work through. The characters are so emotionally unavailable, it is nearly maddening. Even after several days since I watched it, I can't stop thinking about what its purpose is. It requires a second viewing, if one is not too faint of heart. I loved it, even though I did not understand it all the first time. As a recommendation for all of Egoyan's work -- if you're all about the quick fix of action-packed entertainment, look elsewhere. If you want an emotional, suspenseful piece of characterization steeped in a sort of horrid reality, well, this may just be the thing for you. It is a brain teaser. Good luck to all.

*There is also a charming short on the DVD for The Adjuster called "En Passant". It is worth a gander.

---

1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Confused yes, immature yes, but visually inventive, unusual and highly stimulating, 16 August 2002

Author: Moray McConnachie (rmcubed) from Oxford, UK

First, the one bad thing about this film, its handling of sex. It's crass, and the fact that the lead character's wife works for the Board of Censors and watches a lot of pornography manages to be both pompously self-referential and irritatingly shallow at the same time, as well as leading to some completely unnecessary voyeurism.

However, it is bang on in its handling of the lead character. Theoretically unpromising as an insurance adjuster (although Woody Allen makes it work too!), in fact the way in which he interacts with his "clients" exposes interestingly the relationship between people and the service industry (think just how bad or good your bank can actually make your life).

Lots of great interior shots and visual invention, too. Even pretty funny in places.

---

---

Page 1 of 3:

[1] [2] [3]

Add another comment

---

Related Links

Plot summary	Ratings	Awards
Newsgroup reviews	External reviews	Plot keywords
Main details	Your user comments	Your vote history