Critics reviews

Because Egoyan is a master at strategically withholding information, it takes a long time just to work out exactly what's going on, and even longer for the story's multiple strands to converge. When they finally do, however, Exotica—much like Egoyan's subsequent film, The Sweet Hereafter—proves to be a devastatingly cathartic exploration of tragedy's aftermath and the ways that people attempt to cope with inexpressible grief.

The saddest parts of Exotica — Atom Egoyan's lush and affecting sixth feature, a movie inflected like its predecessors by obsessive sexual rituals and desperate familial longings — are moments when money awkwardly changes hands... Exotica has plenty to say about the modern world, including the psychological, social, and racial (even colonial) ramifications of "exotic" sexual tastes, but class difference isn't a significant part of its agenda either.