In the relatively new post-9/11 world, we are all familiar with the intense emotional reaction and subsequent wave of shock and questioning that follows the news of a terrorist attack. It is a feeling we have all, unfortunately, experienced. Many times all of our outrage, anger, and questions can be summed up one simple word: why? It feels as though if we just knew why someone would complete such a heinous and horrible act it would not only help us to understand, but also on some level make us feel better.

What if we had the ability to actually ask this question and all of our other questions to someone close to the perpetrator of these acts, such as their mother, father, or child? How exactly would we react to them face-to-face and what would we actually be able to say? These are some of the questions that filmmaker Atom Egoyan explores in his new film Adoration.

The film begins with Sabine, a high school French teacher giving her class an exercise in translation. The assignment is to take an article based on the true story of a terrorist who plants a bomb in the airline luggage of his pregnant fianceè and translate it into English. The challenging assignment inspires a unique response out of one student in particular, Simon, who in the course of his translation re-imagines himself as the unborn child from the story.

Although Simon is not in fact the same child from the article, he does have a very unique family history himself. When he was younger both his parents were killed in a car accident that Simon has always questioned was intentional or not. After the accident the care of Simon was left to his Uncle Tom whom Simon has lived with ever since. Tom's father and Simon's grandfather, Morris, who was not the most popular figure in the family, passed away in the Spring prior to Simon receiving the assignment that would end up having a very profound impact on his life. Simon's grandfather believed throughout his life that the accident that ended his daughter's life was no accident but an intentional act completed by his son-in-law, Sami, whose ethnicity led Morris to believe he was a born terrorist.

As Simon works on his assignment and gives life and a voice to this alternate identity from the article, Sabine is intrigued. She encourages Simon to complete his translation and present it to the rest of his class as if it is true and he really is the child from the story. The reaction he receives from his classmates encourages him to keep going and take the story further. He takes the story to the Internet and begins an online discussion where he talks face to face over video chat to an entire room full of people about the perceived impact of knowing your father was a terrorist.

At this point it is a little more clear that this is a film about how people communicate with each other and how that can be different when people talk in person versus over the Internet. The reactions Simon receives vary from people who feel sorry for him to people who believe he is to blame for his father's actions to people who were actually on the plane that was the intended target of the terrorist's bomb. The idea is that this story spreads like wildfire across the Internet inspiring numerous chat rooms where people are discussing their thoughts on terrorism and why people commit these dreadful acts against humanity.

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