User reviews

Willem Dafoe is now Commandant Klein, and he is in charge of a concentration camp. Previously, he was a guest at a show of one of Germany's greatest clowns, Adam Stein (Jeff Goldblum), and now Stein stands before him in his camp. He graciously agrees to free Stein if he does two things, (1) act like a dog for his amusement, and (2) play the violin while his wife and daughter march to their deaths in the gas chamber.

Having lost his humanity, Adam is in and out of mental institutions while living in Israel. The patients love him, the doctor (Derek Jacobi) is fascinated with his case, and the head nurse (Ayelet Zurer)wants his body - why, I could never figure out.

Adam comes upon a young boy (Tudor Rapiteanu) in the cellar of the institution and begins a transformation that not only cures the boy, but restores his humanity.

The back and forth flashback may be disturbing to some, but it is essential to the story, and gives us a chance to enjoy the excellence that Dafoe brings to the screen.

Goldblum is excellent, as he always is.

In Berlin, the Jewish Adam Stein (Jeff Goldblum) is a successful artist that works with his wife and two daughters in a cabaret. During the World War II, Adam and his family are sent to a concentration camp and the cruel Commandant Klein (Willem Dafoe), who was his fan, assigns Adam to become his "dog" to entertain him. Adam has to live like a dog with another dog, Rex, while tries to convince Klein to save his wife and his little daughter that are sent to the ovens. After the war, Adam is sent to a mental institution in Israel for Survivors of the Holocaust under the care of the psychiatric Dr. Nathan Gross (Derek Jacobi) and becomes a leader among the patients. He also has a mistress, the nurse Gina Grey (Ayelet Zurer), who loves kinky sex. One day, Adam smells a dog in the institute, which is forbidden, and he finds a boy that was raised chained in a basement and behaves like a dog. Adam recalls his period as a dog in the concentration camp and gets close to the dog-like boy and their journey together begins.

"Adam Resurrected" is a weird film about a man and a boy that have been turned into dog. The strange plot is supported by a fantastic performance of Jeff Goldblum that deserved at least a nomination to the Oscar. Most of the characters are bizarre and this movie is somehow fascinating and seems to be written by a mad writer. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Adam – Memórias de Uma Guerra" ("Adam – Memories of a War")

Jeff Goldblum plays a post-war Jew that spent time in a German Concentration Camp as the commandant's personal clown. Before the war Adam Stein was a stage clown with an amazing act that made everyone bust at their seams. But when Nazi's came to power, his show was abruptly ended and his family was sent to a concentration camp. While there, a Nazi Commandant, Played by Willem Dafoe, recognized him from seeing his show before and assures his safety if he will perform as his own personal clown. This however leads to many months of brutal torture that Adam is never able to forget. Years later, Adam is sent to a research center to help those who were mentally affected by their time in the German Holocaust. The research center peruses Adam to help a young boy that was abused in many of the same ways that Adam was in the CC. A decent independent film with a great performance from Jeff Goldblum. Not everyone's idea of a war film, but well made nevertheless.

I wanted to like this movie more than ended up actually liking it. There was a lot of good stuff: the clinic in the desert for Holocaust survivors; Willem Dafoe's Nazi character; Jeff Goldblum; the hot nurse, etc. But, things just never clicked for me.

For one thing, the other patients at the clinic had that Island of Misfit Toys feel; each had some strange behavioral tick, like a Wes Anderson flick from the 90's. Also, much of the dialog was inaudible or indecipherable. Snippets of German and strange accents; hard to understand..

Also, if the clinic was for Holocaust survivors, and the year was 1961, why was there a young boy there? He wouldn't even have been born during WWII.

Anyway, this movie is still worth watching because at least it's different. I'll throw it in again someday, and who knows maybe I'll like it better the second time around...

This movie is a perfect little contraption, as is the character of Adam, who has everything it takes to make himself loved (Goldblum's acting is fantastic). Despite this, I was not able to love this movie as much as I would have liked, maybe I found it to bed a little too self satisfied. It seems to me a recurring flaw in many cultured movies but I guess it also depends on personal sensitivity.

Adam Stein (Jeff Goldblum) is a charming patient at a mental institution for Holocaust survivors in 1961 Israel. His doctor Nathan Gross (Derek Jacobi) is confounded. He is infatuated with nurse Gina Grey (Ayelet Zurer). He is haunted by dogs and starts to hallucinate. He finds a boy acting like a dog under his bed. Before the war, Adam was a magician, all-around entertainer. He was liked by everybody including the Nazis until he was put into a concentration camp. The camp was run by Commandant Klein (Willem Dafoe) who recognized him. Adam survived by playing the part of the Commandant's "dog" while his family is killed off.

There is an interesting performance from Jeff Goldblum. However everything else is done with such lifelessness. Both the asylum and the concentration camp are locations of absurd lunacy. There is a rambling nature to the story. It is almost Kafkaesque. I wonder if there is too much time at the asylum. At its core, this must be a battle between Adam and Commandant Klein rather than Adam and the boy. The problem is that the movie spends too little time with Klein.

I am surprised at the hatefully negative reviews this movie has gotten. But then I suppose anything that handles a truly dark subject matter, and doesn't spoon feed the audience doesn't get much praise.

This movie is excellent with excellent performances. I didn't mind the accent because it doesn't matter. The meaning of the movie, and the metaphors of film employed are brilliant.

The movie details the struggle of a former circus performer and celebrity with his guilt over surviving his family in the holocaust. Goldblum portrays a man who finds insanity more comfortable then sanity, because sanity brings with it sad truths.

I wanted this to be something it clearly could never live up to...."An entertaining film with great actors playing well written parts". So maybe it's the writing that let's it down or maybe it's the director that let it down but I have to say it's also some of the acting that lets it down. Interesting story line that in the right hands could have been something special. Simple things like Jeff Goldblum (whom I'm a fan of) speaking one moment with a German accent then a scene later without it is a tip off somethings not right here. Willem Dafoe as usual doesn't miss a beat and plays his part to a tee. In the end it not something you have to put on your list of things to see which is a shame because the story itself holds promise. It's frustrating watching movies that could have been, should have been and seeing them done like this. All that money and talent.

I am a huge fan of both dark movies and independent films. When I went to go see Adam Resurrected at the AFI Dallas film festival, I was confident I would love it. Although people had warned me not to go see the film, I simply assumed they couldn't appreciate good film or "art." Boy, was I wrong- I should have taken their advice.

Adam Resurrected is a complete joke. The performances are over-the-top and ridiculous, and the plot is- well- about a man in a mental institution who thinks he is a dog, who happens to mentor a young boy who ALSO thinks he's a dog .

The man had been forced to act like a dog to survive the Holocaust and is now haunted by his "dog" past.

This is not a joke.

Watching Jeff Goldblum walk around on all fours eating dog bones and trying to interpret it as "art" is utterly ridiculous. Watching him change the life of a young boy/dog was even more ridiculous. And of course, the movie is trying to be a "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", for all of the crazy mental patients seem to idolize Goldblum. The mental patients give unbelievably over-the-top performances, and the sex scenes involving Goldblum and the nurse (I will never forget his line when she gets on all fours for him and barks- "Less like a shnauzer, more like a wolf!") are truly horrendous.

This movie is pretentious and trying to be profound, yet it is actually a complete joke. It is incredibly disrespectful to any Holocaust survivors to portray a man forced to bark like a dog for a Nazi general as one of the hardships the Jews faced.

DON'T SEE THIS FILM.

I was immediately taken in by this movie. Jeff Goldblum is excellent and the storyline is intriguing - at first. However, as the plot unfolds, the story becomes more and more unbelievable.

Jeff Goldblum plays a well known Jewish comic/psychic/magician in Berlin, who is being harassed as early as 1936 by the Nazis (extreme intimidation tactics like those depicted in the film don't really get underway until after Kristallnacht in November 1938.) He arrives in a camp in 1944 which seems particularly late for such a prominent Jewish citizen (the most well known Jews generally disappeared first, either through emigration or arrest.) Once interred, a peculiar relationship is created between the commandant and Jeff Goldblum who, as a prisoner, must act like a dog. He thinks this will save his family... It is difficult to believe he acted like a dog on a long term basis, but the reason this is introduced into the story is because fifteen years later he helps a boy who thinks he is a dog. This part of the story occurs in a psychiatric hospital for holocaust survivors. The boy who thinks he is a dog is about 11 years old, which means he was born well after the war and thus not a camp survivor, but this is never explained in the film.

It all reads like a plot taken from literature, which is exactly where it came from. The actors and director did an excellent job, some of the art direction (costuming, sets) was peculiar (what the hell were those boots the nurse wore!) but ultimately, you have to like an almost surreal plot line to appreciate this film. I am not a fan of this kind of literature - I prefer realism and films based on true stories. After all, truth is stranger than fiction.

Jeff Goldlum does the best "Jeff Goldblum" in the business. If you hire him to do a "Jeff Goldblum" performance, it's like money in the bank. But _Adam Resurrected_ is not that. Goldblum's Adam is a nuanced, unpredictable and intelligent piece of work, the best of his career thus far. Indeed, the film as a whole represents a welcome return to adult themes and emotions. Sorrow, loss, power, human dignity, and human degradation are but some of the themes at work in Schrader's movie. Happily, we are not handed a tidy resolution (with the requisite "redemption" at the end), but a deep sense that life is a complicated, conflicted and layered experience. See this film when and if you get tired of CGI effects, Ben Stiller fart jokes and "the genius of Seth Rogen."

A masterpiece doomed to go unrecognized. Not too many people would like it or even sit through it, but in fact it's one of the best holocaust-related films ever made. Hateful reviews have commented on the fact that the film is disturbing and weird - or about the absurdity of a man surviving the holocaust by acting like a dog for the entertainment of a Nazi officer; is it any more absurd than the idea of people stamped with numbers or shoved into ovens? In the face of a horrifically absurd reality, insanity is often a valid option. Most WWII films center on the partisans, the heroes, the ones who kept their dignity and humanity in the face of genocide. But not everyone did. A major goal of Hitler's action was not just to destroy the Jews, but to dehumanize them first. And in many cases it worked. That's what this film is about - the loss of humanity, the feelings of guilt shared by the ones who survived at the expense of their own most basic human dignities, and it's small wonder that it's difficult for most to swallow.

Paul Schrader made a fantastic job adapting Yoram Kanyuk's novel; reviews blaming him of 'emotional detachment' miss the point that this detachment is very intentional. The cold and distant feeling experienced while watching it is very different from the pathos of Schindler's List or Life Is Beautiful, and, rather than draw the viewer into the actual events, brings them face to face with their very madness and incomprehensibility. Jeff Goldblum portrays that feeling perfectly in what may be the most powerful performance of his career - reminding me, at times, of Roy Scheider in All That Jazz. Master-character actors Willem Dafoe and Derek Jacobi compliment him perfectly without stealing the show, and some of Israel's biggest stars join in to complete the ensemble cast. Bottome line - a terrific film, and instantly a favorite of mine, but I hesitate to recommend it to anyone for fear of being blamed for it later. Watch it at your own risk, with an open mind, and with an empty stomach.

There you have at least two great actors who really give what they can but there's no director.

These two actors, Goldblum and Dafoe, are all alone in this insane brain sh... Nobody can explain them their purpose and so the audience is lost in this strange story which probably wants to make sense but there is no one who can press any sense and logic out of it.

It probably could have been a movie that is strange and disturbing and which make you think about humor and hope but sadly it's a movie which is strange, embarrassing and stupid.

There should have been a director, who is just as crazy as the story itself. I think Paul Schrader is a too boring person.

This is the best movie I have seen in a very long time. A completely intriguing script, with some really good acting. Jeff Golblum is playing a Jewish man and lands a powerful and extraordinary performance. Although he has faults at the beginning with the accent, he clearly improves during the movie. This is not a gruesome war movie. In fact, I didn't see one person murdered. It's a psychological drama that revolves around the tormented soul that Jeff Golblum portrays. A tragedy mixed with really dark humour that will keep your attention for the entirety of the film. It's rare that you see Hollywood actors doing such dark, confronting, art-house kind of movies, but this one works and I'm going to recommend it to lots of people.

Not only some deservedly big international actors but also some local favorites from Israel do their best with a script that can scarcely scrape together a brief, weak thread of interest. The movie is based on a book by Yoram Kaniuk, who was also the author of HIMMO, KING OF JERUSALEM. Both stories are about hospitalized men. Evidently Kaniuk identifies with a fantasy protagonist who, by way of great suffering, achieves a martyrdom that returns him to a state of babyhood where he has no responsibilities but is the center of attention and is doted on by a beautiful lady in white. Not a healthy fantasy, but it's not the basic problem of the movie. The basic problem is that the incidents are insistently arbitrary. The hero is at first dependent on a Nazi whose whims are arbitrary. Then he becomes insane, so that his own behavior is arbitrary. Then he's put in a hospital where the rules, as far as the audience can tell, are arbitrary-- restrictive one moment, permissive the next. Unlike the patients in HIMMO, the surrounding patients here are ciphers; they are astoundingly well disciplined, always keeping quiet so that Adam can express himself at will. They restrict their personalities to a single quirk apiece and none of them presents any conflict that could drive a story-- except the boy who behaves like a dog. He presents an opportunity for Adam to redeem himself by helping someone who is in a way his mirror image, and thank goodness for this one escape from the arbitrary succession of dramatic but directionless incidents. Unfortunately it occupies only a little of the movie and is far too sketchy. A dream cast, a fine composer, good visuals-- all wasted.

Stay away!

Pseudo intellectual garbage, that could not be saved by the assembly of top-actors.

Nothing against making a movie about the Nazi terror that includes humoristic elements. Here, however, the attempt has tremendously failed.

Disgusting and tedious without any entertaining/exciting sequence. Again: Stay away!

Intriguing and surreal movie with an outstanding performance by Jeff Goldblum, whose name should have been in the mix for any number of acting awards for this film. Holocaust-related movies generally don't get deliver box office results, but this is a strikingly good treatment that deserves a wider audience. Watch it and get the word of mouth out there.

Paul Schrader, whose had a hand in more than a few films about human darkness, creates an intriguing film here. The "arms" scene at towards the end of the film is worth the price of admission on its own. Right up there with "I am Spartacus" or the "I'm still here, you bastards" last line from "Papillon". Powerful stuff. Derek Jacobi, Willem DeFoe, Ayelet Zurer, a frighteningly good Romanian kid named Tudor Rapiteanu, and the rest of international cast do yeoman's work.

Always been a fan of Jeff Goldblum's read on a line...and he's at the top of his game in "Adam".

This film is probably considered intellectual art, but I found it disgusting and lunatic. I am sorry to have undergone this terror, but watch it I did. At least the terror ended at the end of the film and normality returned. I am not literal minded and cannot in fairness rate this movie.

What a load of nonsense, disturbing for all the wrong reasons. What was in he mind of whoever wrote this I do not know and I don't want to know. It is unusual for me not to watch a movie until the end but I could not watch all of this ridiculous story.