Clear Vision Guides Spin of ‘Adjuster’

“The Adjuster” is a surreal parable with a deadpan sense of humor. Moody, disturbing and purposely obscure, it is put together with so much assurance that it makes indelible marks on your mind even when you’re not exactly sure what it’s trying to say.

The film is the fourth for writer-director Atom Egoyan, who at 31 has already become rather a celebrity on the international festival circuit. Born in Cairo of Armenian descent but raised and currently working in Canada, Egoyan’s vision is a very personal one, but he is certain about it and so skillful in putting it on screen that the result has a much wider resonance than might be expected.

An enigmatic meditation on loneliness and alienation, not to mention altruism, voyeurism and almost any other ism you can think of, “The Adjuster” was a major success at festivals in New York, Cannes, London and Toronto, and is typical of the kind of venture that wins prizes and applause but tends to leave mass audiences a bit dazed and confused.

This does not mean that much of “The Adjuster” (at the Hillcrest Cinemas, rated R for sensuality and language) isn’t perfectly clear and provocatively involving. Inspired by the aftermath of a major fire at Egoyan’s parents’ home, “The Adjuster” takes us through several days in the life of Noah Render (Elias Koteas), an insurance company employee in an unnamed city whose job it is not only to expedite the claims of people who have been burned out, but also to see that their lives return to normal as quickly as possible.

Job is probably not the correct word where Noah is concerned. A one-man Salvation Army, he brings an all-consuming passion, even mania to his work. Low-key and soft-spoken, with a tendency to repeat the same homilies to clients he conveniently warehouses in the same motel while their claims are being processed, Noah seems to literally carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Available day and night for all types of services, Noah is so involved in living other people’s lives that he neglects his own. And, inevitably, while his clients literally kiss his hand, those closer to him get much less of his time and attention.

Besides following Noah around and around, the film takes a pair of other paths. One concerns Noah’s wife, Hera (played by Arsinee Khanjian, the director’s wife). An employee of some type of local censorship board, she spends her days watching and rating the raunchiest sort of pornography (no, we don’t get to see it, but we hear the soundtracks). And, as a kind of hobby, she clandestinely videotapes the most objectionable parts so her stay-at-home sister can see what she does for a living.

Even stranger is the lifestyle of a lost and lonely but extremely wealthy ex-athlete named Bubba (Maury Chaykin) and his bubbly girlfriend Mimi (Gabrielle Rose). Spiritually related to the manipulative Guy Grand of Terry Southern’s manic “The Magic Christian,” Bubba plays out elaborate pranks in what appears to be a curious attempt to connect with reality. “When you have everything you want, but you don’t know what you need,” he explains at one point, “you try different things.”

Though this summary is as accurate as far as it goes, it’s the places it doesn’t go that’s more to the point where “The Adjuster” is concerned, for the director’s fragmentary style of filmmaking means that these disconnected snippets of story cohere less readily than might be imagined from the lines of a brisk synopsis.

Egoyan’s images come straight from the dream state, and though his scenes have the look of conventional reality, like dreams there is no understanding them completely, no saying for sure what they might mean. Still with its visual elegance, its flashes of wit and its haunting air of mystery, getting lost with “The Adjuster” is more rewarding than knowing exactly where you are with any number of less adventurous films.