Adam is not like other guys. He's the smartest person in any room he enters, handsome without a trace of ego, sweet almost to a fault. But there's something else that sets him apart: He has Asperger's Syndrome, a high-functioning type of autism.
Writer/director Max Mayer handles the topic with care in his second feature film "Adam," and doesn't aim to make the title character, played convincingly by Hugh Dancy ("Evening"), a walking punch line. He has high regard for his socially-impaired protagonist and sees to it that you will, too.
The film opens with a funeral for Adam's father, his caretaker for the past 29 years. His day-to-day life consists of eating the same meal every night (macaroni and cheese), working as an electronic engineer at a toy company and gazing longingly at the stars. Then he meets Beth (Rose Byrne of F/X's "Damages"), a sophisticated writer with a broken heart, who recently moved into his building. They are not the likeliest of matches, but Cupid's arrow hits in mysterious ways.
From the get-go, their connection is strong but the relationship has several strikes against it. For starters, as much as they try, they will never truly understand each other. ("My brain works differently than neurotypicals," he points out.) That means that while he can be romantic, which he is on several occasions -- most notably during a late-night outing in Central Park to watch the raccoons -- he can't emotionally connect in the same way. He also can't read social cues without guidance and is prone to fits of anxiety, the kind that lead him to slam his head on a mirror when the status quo gets disrupted.
But perhaps their biggest obstacle is Beth's father (Peter Gallagher), an outspoken accountant accused of fraud, who thinks she can do better. "You marry an investment banker, you can do whatever you want," he says. The whole father-daughter storyline conjures up flashbacks of "Say Anything," and Amy Irving's small-but-touching role as the wronged wife is heart-tugging. The show belongs to Dancy though, who brings a raw, nervous energy to Adam, like he's waiting for a bear to attack him at any given moment.
"Adam" works because it feels genuine and doesn't take regular detours into melodrama -- at times it's rather funny in a subtle way. The lovebirds bond because they each need something the other can provide: Adam wants someone who can help him better function in society; Beth craves a man to be nice to her and tell it like it is. Their dynamic suggests mutual care and respect, though it doesn't exactly have "long-term potential" scribbled all over it.
There aren't many fictional movies out there about autism – a grand total of one springs to mind – and "Adam" is a respectable, albeit imperfect, attempt to turn that around. While its heart is always in the right place, some subplots linger too long (dad's courtroom drama) and a few scenes seem to exist solely to cutesy up the trailer (Adam in a spacesuit cleaning her windows). But as Adam himself proves, there's more to life than perfection.
