In The Adjuster Egoyan has shifted from small-scale to large-scale film-making, without losing sight of his specific themes (voyeurism, bizarre sexuality, de-personalisation by the modern media, the disintegration of family life in present-day society). The film was shot in an imposing wide-screen format with a largely professional cast and impressive art direction. The pictures are stylised and tend to the absurd. The writer of a negative review in Variety had to admit: `The visuals are gorgeous’.The film focuses on the insurance agent (`adjuster’) Noah Render. Render is almost a modern-day saint, especially for several of his female clients. He takes care of the claim of these women who have been made homeless by a fire, but also their problems and desires. Render is also the perfect manager of his own family life. But in the bizarre world of Egoyan, perfection can easily turn to chaos.The film is set in `a’ near future which looks very much like the present, but has a Kafka-esque censorship. Render’s wife Hera works for the censor and is responsible for removing all too emotional scenes from films. She supplies her sister Sete with her need for pornographic videos. There are, as usual with Egoyan, other references to the media and film-making. In this way, Renders house — a villa in a kind of wilderness –is more or less confiscated by a semi-film-crew which changes the house into a grotesque sexual battlefield.
