Insurance Adjuster Noah Render (Elias Koteas) works with people who have suffered the loss of their homes and other disasters in Canada. He gets a little too involved with his clients, taking advantage of their vulnerability to control their lives--while only having superficial interactions with his own wife Hera (Arsinée Khanjian), who secretly videotapes the porn films she watches for a government censor board. There are various other characters who come into contact with the pair and sexual fantasies are the main theme that drives the story forward. "Was this a purebred?" Noah asks a gay couple whose dog still smolders in the ashes of their apartment. When another couple, Bubba (Maury Chaykin) and Mimi (Gabrielle Rose), poses as part of a film crew who want to use Noah and Hera's house, Noah moves his family into the motel where he houses his displaced clients, bringing his separate worlds too close together. The ending quotes from "The Sound of Music" in a comic horror finale. One of the main characters--unable to "play house" anymore decides to burn down the Insurance Adjuster's house he has rented, and starts singing "My Favorite Things" as he proceeds to extinguish them all.
There is very little plot, but this sex comedy does have some very memorable characters and it has a good climax. Though initially mysterious and distanced, "The Adjuster" builds to a sense of loss and sorrow. As in his earlier films, director Atom Egoyan explores how people evade and contain the traumas in their lives. Wicked, darkly funny, sexy, it's perhaps the most successful critique of consumer society ever filmed. It's a strange, repetitious, surreal, confusing, disturbing, and hilarious film. Not all viewers like it, of course. Mychael Danna composed the original music, and Atom Egoyan wrote the screenplay and directed.
