Adam is a little different from your usual romance picture.
Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne star as Adam and Beth, neighbours in a New York apartment building who meet and are attracted to one another. Initially, what Beth doesn’t know is that Adam has Asperger’s Syndrome, a disorder somewhat akin to high-functioning autism. Adam has problems with communication, non-verbal cues and social interaction. He’s nerdy and awkward, and extremely smart.
The movie opens at the funeral of Adam’s father; a viewer is first shown Adam’s apparent lack of emotion and then the various narrow routines he lives by, and it’s quickly obvious that this guy marches to a different drummer.
Adam has one close friend in Harlan (Frankie Faison), a buddy who gets him to talk about women and other attractions of everyday life. Adam shows an obsessive attention to detail and he’d prefer to talk about the scientific minutiae of stars and the universe, but Harlan forces him to look around at other things.
Adam and Beth meet when she moves into his building. After a few clumsy false starts, they agree to do something together. Adam takes Beth into Central Park to look at a family of raccoons.
Adam’s behaviour is odd, but not off-putting. As he and Beth get closer, she wants him to meet her parents. They all meet at a play at the Cherry Lane Theatre, and when Adam launches into one of his encyclopedic chats about the history of the place, you can see Beth’s parents take a step back. Her father (Peter Gallagher) and her mother (Amy Irving) have their reservations.
The story switches gears when Beth’s dad gets into legal trouble for some sort of accounting issue. Up until then, Beth helps Adam with his social behaviour and his job searches, and takes his difficulties in stride. But when the stress in her life increases, their relationship is threatened.
In Asperger’s Syndrome, writer/director Max Mayer has found an intense metaphor for human relationships — the isolation, the difficulty with communication, the confusion and torment over what the other person is thinking.
Adam is a low-key, charming movie, and often very funny. Adam has no social filter, so he usually blurts the absolute truth, a tendency that exposes the piles of baloney present in so many social situations. And his inability to shade, twist, alter or otherwise embroider the truth is contrasted with the way Beth’s father plays with veracity.
Though a few of the performances in Adam are not note-perfect, Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne are truly wonderful in their roles. Unlike the Rain Man or Forrest Gump-type representations of difference, Adam is neither showy nor trite; above all, Dancy never puts a foot wrong. He vanishes into the part of Adam, and his performance is probably the best reason for seeing this movie.