This is just the sort of mental masturbation that I enjoy. Lots of people making platitudes about right and wrong.
When George Romero doesn’t understand how the Internet works in Diary of the Dead it is embarrassing. When Egoyan does the same thing, it is symbolic.
A tightly spun yarn that we discover, after much searching, is about an orphaned kid trying to learn more about his parents, also manages to be one of the angriest post-Shock and Awe movies ever made. The writing is quite sharp and the performances are solid. Things get a tiny bit cutesy and overly clever at the end, but, hey, that was the filmmaker’s choice. It changes things more to “fable,” I suppose.
I put this on par with Speaking Parts or Exotica, but not quite The Sweet Hereafter.