Perfect cast and a good story

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

This film should have been titled The Sterile Cuckoo, but that title had already been taken by another film. Atom Egoyan tries to get away from the mundane life of an insurance adjuster by adding kinky to the film every ten minutes or so. The formula falls short. It is different; and the kinky scenes are interesting, but not interesting or explored enough to alleviate the boredom of the basic plot. I enjoyed the scenes of the only professional actor in the film, Maury Chaykin (Dances With Wolves), as a very convincing pervert. However, the rest of the acting crew was strictly local theater troupe level. Not really recommended.

Here's one of those art house films, out there in weidorama land, where the lead characters have interesting picked careers, that are both explored, which I found informative. Most of the characters are odd, (it's a Atom Egoyan film, remember) and of course no forgetting wild actor, Koteas. It's great to see him in a lead, especially in something like this. He's a very good actor, who I've followed since seeing him as the bitter paraplegic in that Hogan fare, Almost An Angel. He's more impressive, the more stuff I see from this guy. Here he plays an over caring and over sympathetic insurance adjuster to destroyed and devastated folk, who've lost their homes in fires. He sleeps with some of his clients too, and shows real generosity putting the shattered clients up in this motel. He also does one of the maids. His wife, Arsinee Khanjian is a pornographic censor, who gets caught up in her work, one might say, actually furtively, taping her flicks, and taking her work home to get off. Could she be unfilled sexually? I really liked learning a bit, how the censor worked. And who is this real oddball director (Chaykin) who uses their show home as a film location, where the lead actress begins to strip, while surrounded by a circle of little boys sitting. Of course, we don't get past seeing her with her loud red bra, where what's followed is implied. The Adjuster has a few strange moments, including one lesbian, feeling up another on a train in frank view of Khanjian sitting across, fascinated. But none more unforgettable is obviously Chaykin, beating off at Koteas's window. Chaykin too, has formed a weird relationship with Khanjian's younger sister which provides a disturbing twist in it's end. Even though Koteas does his really good part, as a troubled and distressed guy, he's upstaged by Chaykin who I thought rocked. His character was so intriguing, though the performance that really stuck, and it was a small part, was that of the head censor, Hemblen. He was brilliant, almost beyond belief, so naturalistic, he too, providing another weird moment. With it's mini promotional poster, of Elias, holding a bow and arrow (what's with that?) this was movie a movie that got my vested interested, I wasn't disappointed in any way by this movie, except, the High Level Sex Scenes warning, the main one, where Koteas is making love with one of his clients, in a teasing darkness, Koteas and co, practically silhouettes. Yes, it has style, is semi arousing, thought provoking, and of course, remotely original, but at the end of it, in spite of all these plusses, The Adjuster, doesn't really equate to much. There just wasn't enough here, like filling to a sandwich. You walk away feeling unmoved, only that's not how you feel when you watch it. Like many directors, Eyogan went on to cast some of the same actors, for his better 'Exotica'. Definitely, still a recommended view. Don't cross it off. Some David Lynch fans might get a buzz out of it too.

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)

I've decided that Egoyan is a minimalist. Not only are great gaps created on purpose in the Egoyan film script, an enormous amount of dialogue is left unwritten as well. Including the Adjuster I have seen at least three of his films. Exotica is the one I remember the least, the Sweet Hereafter the one I recall best. Sweet Hereafter was closer to being a conventional film, its script an adaptation of a best-selling novel. But the Egoyan filmstyle was visible in Sweet Hereafter too. It took a couple of viewings before I realized the father of the young girl in Hereafter was having sex with his daughter before her involvement in the accident. It is an instance when leaving something not quite spoken or noted works out beautifully in the script. At least in the three films I have seen, unconventional sexual tastes are also a recurrent theme. Egoyan is obsessed with them. I think he believes everyone is obsessed with sex in their own way. I believe he is right, but this Director finds ways to make his characters borderline pervs while at the same time stressing their conventionality.An unanswered question in Adjuster is how the crazed ex-footballer and filmmaker cum fantasist managed to find the adjuster. Also, one of the fantasist's retinue of females managed to appear before the Adjuster's wife on the subway, midway through the film. This is the woman in red who sits next to the decrepit bum after he has revealed his state, and puts his hand in her crotch and smiles joyously at the rest of the subway passengers. Later the Adjuster's porn-censoring wife repeats the inverse of the same gesture on herself when the 28 year old rookie film censor arranges to view some porn alone with her. There is also the question of what this woman is actually doing with the outtakes she films with a video camera. Her story about the camera being a way to show her sister what she does is not convincing.Yes, do go back and see the film again. There's all kinds of stuff in it.