Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
liked it.
In 1991, three years before he gained international attention with
Exotica, unorthodox Canadian filmmaker
Atom Egoyan added to his already considerable reputation as a daring adventurer by making The Adjuster. As he had done in such previous films as
Family Viewing, Egoyan masterfully scripted mundane situations involving seemingly unremarkable people -- in this case an insurer adjuster -- that peeled away to reveal psychosexual and emotional quagmires. Egoyan's customary troupe of players includes
Elias Koteas as the nosy insurance man and Egoyan's wife
Arsinée Khanjian as a hypocritical film censor. Difficult, risqué, and rife with Egoyan's customary deadpan, flat dialogue, The Adjuster has many of the elements that would be so masterfully realized in
Exotica, and the film is a must for fans of the idiosyncratic Egoyan. By the end of the decade, he would be established as an uncompromising filmmaker with such more acclaimed, more accessible films as
The Sweet Hereafter and
Felicia's Journey. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide