Adam (2009)

I remember seeing a trailer for Lars and the Real Girl a few years back and thinking, "that looks fantastically bad", though I had a secret hope that it would somehow be excellent. I was eventually talked into seeing it, and truth be told, I nearly cried during it. It's an absolutely phenomenal film about a guy who just doesn't understand human interaction. As someone with some anxiety issues, I can certainly relate, though not on the same scale of course, and I felt quite touched by the inevitable happy ending. When I read the synopsis of Adam, Max Mayer's second film according to imdb, I thought to myself "this looks like Lars with Aspergers".

And it was. Just not as good. Adam has Aspergers. Adam also has a gorgeous neighbor (Rose Byrne), who wants to help him like the pilot helps the Little Prince in the fantastic story of the same name, as mentioned in the opening narration. Unfortunately for Adam, he's stuck both in his head and in a formulaic romantic comedy (amusingly, Hugh Dancy, the lead actor, didn't realize this until late in the shooting).

As a result, you know when you sit down what is going to happen. You know that Byrne's character is going to fall for Adam's quirks, and you know when Adam just isn't going to understand the situation and fly off the handle. You know how the film ends already (well, you can narrow it down to a few possible choices). With all that said, I enjoyed Adam.

Similar to a movie like Once, Adam is joyfully unpretentious. Unlike Once, there is actually some content to the movie to make it worth watching other than the delightful leads. Also unlike Once, I would actually recommend this movie to other people. The central issues of the film seem important to the director, and his sincerity more than makes up for the shortcomings of the production. And even when some holes are too big to be covered up, there are absolutely fantastic performances on display by the two leads, as well as Adam's lone friend and the films main source of humor, Harlan.

I would ultimately say that this isn't a film that really needs to be seen in theaters. Just wait a few months for it to be a 99 cent rental at Blockbuster, and enjoy it for its successes. Ideally though, you could just rent Lars and the Real Girl instead.