About Adam

About Adam received new life after Kate Hudson became almost famous. But while Hudson plays a key role this film is, quite literally, about Adam, as played wonderfully by Stuart Townsend. The film begins with young Irish singing waitress Lucy, as played by Hudson with an Irish accent that comes and goes, meeting the mysterious Adam. She immediately falls for him and their new romance proceeds happily along. Lucy brings Adam home to meet the family and here things get turned on their head. After seeing the story play out from Lucy's perspective we go back and revisit the same time period from different points of view, those of Lucy's two sisters and brother. It soon becomes apparent that Adam is not quite what he seems and that he has become much closer to Lucy's family than she would ever believe.

Frances O'Connor as the quiet, bookish Laura and Charlotte Bradley as the unhappily married Alice will each strike up their own serious relationship with Adam. As we see each of the sisters' stories unfold it puts a new spin on all that we have seen before. Even Lucy's brother finds himself oddly attracted to Adam while Lucy floats along completely oblivious to all that is swirling around her. Each of the key roles is performed well and enough time is given to allow us to explore the motivations of each of these characters. If we didn't really get to know these people and what drives them, everyone involved could come off rather badly, especially Townsend's Adam. But the director makes each character sympathetic enough and it all ties together very well.

A clever script, mostly terrific acting, intriguing characters, wonderful Irish scenery and a very smart plot device that adds a unique twist to everything...About Adam has a lot going for it. It's a smart, funny, enjoyable ride.

'About Adam' is a male counterpart to Gerry Stembridge's classic TV drama, 'the Truth about Clare', his innovative film about Ireland and abortion. In that film, three characters tried to grope, through memories, prejudices, egotism, blindness etc., the truth about the title character, a pregnant woman who died following an abortion in England (it is still illegal in Ireland); here, four characters try to capture the essence of the elusive Adam, a jack of all relationships but mastered by none.

A knowledge of Stembridge's previous, more sober film gives this breezy comedy a darker edge - its tale of a family being given everything they sexually desire is an appropriate metaphor for a society like Ireland currently going through an unheard-of economic boom, creating a culture of extreme self-interest. The dangers of this self-interest are plain to see - a few weeks ago another Stembridge TV satire was aired about Ireland's racist treatment of refugees.

We have never had this much prosperity before, and we don't want anyone else sharing it. Similarly, the last person this film is 'about' is Adam. Like 'Clare', the film is structured around the personal narratives of each character involved with Adam - Lucy (Kate Hudson, and, I'm afraid, the hype for once is spot-on - she IS adorable), the spontaneous, singing waitress with a new boyfriend every week, who finally settles down to a 'great passion'; Laura (Frances O'Conner - can there be any doubt now that she is our finest actress?), the pretentious, uptight English post-grad doing a thesis on repressed Victorian women writers who is 'loosened up' by Adam, her assumptions revealed to be a lie; David, the brother, dating a prim virgin, enlisting Adam's help and finding himself sexually attracted to him; Alice, the elder sister, trapped in a prosperous marriage to a pompous dullard, intrigued by Adam, but unwilling to lose control like her siblings that easy.

Each narrative is tailored to each witness' personality (like 'Dracula', an ironic allusion throughout), in the way each story is shaped; in the stylistic devices employed; in tone; but, most importantly, in the perception of Adam. 'Clare', for all its excellence, played to that age-old myth, the mystery, inscrutability, unattainability, unknowability of woman. 'Adam', the first man, remorselessly documented throughout thousands of years of masculine culture, is suddenly the mystery, the woman, the sphinx, the passive black hole.

Adam (which may not even be his name) is the blank onto which the various characters project their fantasies - he is literally what they want him to be. Naturally, plot points overlap within the four stories, and our interpretation of them changes with greater knowledge, but, paradoxically, our knowledge of Adam diminishes, helped by the lies and stories he spins about himself. Who is Adam? Besides the obvious pleasure of bedding three beautiful women, why does he do it? In fact, forget that 'besides', that's probably your answer.

As well as alluding to his own work, Stembridge cleverly remodels two other classics of sexual amorphousness. Like Terence Stamp in Pasolini's 'Theorem', Adam is a stranger who enters a bourgeois household where everyone has a stereotypical role they adhere to, and which Adam smashes, forcing them to review their lives and the assumptions they live by. This has a liberating effect, but also a joyful one - this is a remarkably angst-free film. With his blank good looks, his white suit, and bleached blonde crop, Stuart Townsend (hi Celia!) is a ringer for the young Stamp.

The other allusion is to 'Alfie', that freewheelingly amoral sexual cad, lying his way through a score of beautiful women. Except Adam is the anti-Alfie, he does not humiliate or diminish women, they're the ones who develop; and he lacks the controlling power of narration; but he does limit them, reducing them to 'mere' sexual urge.

Significantly, both these films were key artefacts of the 1960s, and there is an optimism, a freshness, a vigour, a lightness to 'About Adam' that resembles the swinging 60s, as if Ireland, belatedly, has entered its own hedonistic decade. Both films, equally significantly, were warnings or analyses of that decade's fatal complacency, and in the exhilerating shots of Dublin that dot the film we cannot fail to notice the looming cranes, the building activity that suggests this story isn't quite finished, this culture hasn't quite reached maturity.

I guess from my reaction to many a romantic comedy, some may think I'm male. Actually I'm a heterosexual female who enjoys ORIGINAL romantic comedy, but I also have half a brain and expect some degree of intelligence from films.

The Laura character summed this film up pretty thoroughly for me. She is an English actor, meaning that two of the main characters, including of course THE main female lead, were not Irish. I can't be bothered repeating why this is extremely sad - it's been said so many times - but the marketing machine behind most movies will not change it's mind about shoving Americans (or Brits) into the leads in "foreign" films, no matter how much people complain. They want the bucks, you know, and a famous names DOES mean more bums on seats. Sad but true.

I found this film uninspired. There were perhaps 2 or 3 genuinely amusing and surprising lines. The characters were pretty much laughable, in a bad way. Adam's justification for his machiavellian behaviour I found ridiculous and unconvincing. This guy is not altruistic - that much should have been patently obvious to anyone with a brain half the size of an ant's b**ls.

I hung on to the end. Lord knows why as I tend to advise: if you don't like a movie, turn it off. Maybe I'm feeling rather masochistic today or maybe I kept hoping something was going to happen to make it worth my while. It didn't.

That said, if you don't care about intelligent scripts or whether a movie rehashes themes/styles/plots that have been done better elsewhere many a time and if you like fluffy, pointless romantic comedy no matter what, then watch and enjoy! 4/10

The reason I say that is because I like the way they give different perspectives of several different scenes as seen by the different characters in the movie. I really like Stewart Townsend (he's one of those adorable people that are charismatic not to mention easy on the eyes). This is definitely NOT a cinematic masterpiece but I don't think it was meant to be either. It was entertaining and THAT's what I liked about it. Well, that and Stewart Townsend but I think I already mentioned that. Didn't sound like many people liked this one but I have to disagree. It's fun, sexy, flirtatious,and comedic all in one movie. Give it a chance and watch it again or for the first time, whichever the case may be.

In some ways this is an incredibly refreshing film. In it's acceptance that lust and promiscuity are normal facts of life and not something that lead to a lifetime of suffering and possibly eternal damnation, it's almost unique in Irish cinematic history. Seeing a film so free from the historical and religious baggage that shackles most Irish films can also be a bit disconcerting, like seeing one of the nuns that taught you in school wearing a mini-skirt and fishnet tights.

Set far from the traditional Irish mise-en-scene in Dublin's trendy Temple Bar area, it features Stuart Townsend as a benign Irish cousin to Jack Nicholson in _The Witches of Eastwick_, who plays on the desires of three beautiful sisters for his own ends. Far from being a scheming Casanova, he's a likeable character who does nothing more than tell a few tall tales to aid his seductive techniques, and who helps people come to terms with themselves rather than cosign them to a life of guilt by doing so.

This film is like Stembridges earlier film, Guiltrip, turned inside out. It's bright, urban-based, modern, and shows signs that Ireland is finally developing a mature attitude to Sexuality.