Noah Render (Elias Koteas) is an apparently empathetic insurance man rendering decisions regarding his client’s claims, while also trying to salve the wounds inflicted by the inevitable sudden sense of loss and displacement that accompanies unexpected tragedy.
“You may not know it, but you’re in shock,” Noah tells his clients. They aren’t the only ones. Noah tries to give his client’s lives meaning by having them itemize what they have lost so they can get what they deserve. He tends to their material pain, but is unable to nurse their spiritual angst (tellingly, Noah can’t ease his wife’s nightmares). In a society that idolizes material possession, Noah’s clients revere him, treating him like a priest/shaman; however, to borrow from Oscar Wilde, people in The Adjuster know the price of everything but the value of nothing. Noah does whatever his client’s need to help them feel normal, including sleeping with them. In danger of being set adrift in this limbo land, Noah’s actions create the imminent danger of the irreparable destruction of all that is truly valuable in his life.
Writer/director Atom Egoyan sprinkles mythological references throughout, from the character’s names (Noah, Hera) to actions (Cupid-like, Noah fires arrows at the idealized family on the billboard outside his bedroom window). Noah’s clients climb aboard his ark, seeking refuge from life’s storms, while Egoyan’s recurring fire imagery acts as a paradoxical symbol of destruction and affirmation, death and purification. The purgatorial motel that houses Noah’s clients is likewise full of starkly contrasting textures: bright, cheery colours adorn its exterior, while the sullenly-lit rooms are full of individuals struggling to deal with loss and despair.
The film’s soundtrack (Mychael Danna’s extraordinary score is hypnotic and sensuous) is littered with nattering, incomprehensible voices that seem to be haunting Noah; perhaps they are ghosts of clients past, whose voices won’t let him sleep, so he watches Hera as she sleeps. Hera, played with introspective intensity by the equine beauty Arsinee Khanjian, is a watcher too – of pornographic films, which she censors (and, in one of the film’s many quirks, surreptitiously tapes for her elder, non-English-speaking sister).
Complicating an already complex story is the appearance of Bubba (the ever-wonderful Maury Chaykin) and Mimi (the gaudily impressive Gabrielle Rose), a couple who represent society’s Rich and Vacuous. Aimless thrill seekers, they try to connect by pushing emotional borders. They live outside of convention, not because they are daring, but because they are bored. Bubba, like many in the film, is not an easy character to reduce. He is complex, contradictory and completely unforgettable, harbouring depths of pain that only become apparent at the film’s close.
Atom Egoyan may be Canadian, but his films are more European than North American. They cannot be wittily reduced to clever taglines, and require attentiveness and thoughtfulness of their audience. Described as cool, aloof, over-intellectual, Egoyan’s work is far from the typical Hollywood popcorn flick. Thankfully, The Adjuster is typical in only one way: It is a typical Atom Egoyan film.
