Once upon a time there was a boy named Adam (Hugh Dancy) and a girl named Beth (Rose Byrne). Handsome and smart, the boy spent his days building robotic toys and memorizing star charts. Beautiful and imaginative, the girl spent her days dreaming of romance and writing happiness. Tired of betrayal and heartbreak, the girl was not looking for love. Unable to understand the emotions of others much less fully comprehend his own, the boy didn’t even know what love was. But one day, when the girl moved in above the boy, that neither were looking for love ceased to really matter.
And so begins the Fox Searchlight film Adam, the story of an unlikely romance between a young man living with Asperger’s Syndrome and a young woman who didn’t even know what Asperger’s was until she met him. As it is set up, the tale we expect is one that will prove love’s ability to conquer all differences and bridge even the greatest gaps of misunderstanding. As the complicated romance between Adam and Rose unfolds, their unique relationship serves as an extreme example of how difficult it can truly be relate to, understand, and love another human being. But as the film comes to a close, its message, like Adam and Beth’s relationship, is not quite as simple as that of our favorite fairy tale.
Much like the young man who tells the Emperor he is wearing no clothes in the story of The Emperor and His New Clothes that Beth reads to her class, Adam is a man who sees his world in black and white. As he tells Beth, his instinct is to assume that others think and feel exactly the way he does. To speak anything other than what he knows to be the truth defies the reason by which he operates. And to reach for anything beyond certainty, something he does not fully comprehend.
In Beth, however, we find a slightly different way of thinking. We see their difference in perspective as Beth and Adam discuss Adam’s job search: “I’m sure the right thing will come along,” Beth tells Adam. “How can you be sure of that?” Adam responds. “I mean, I hope,” Beth clarifies. We cannot ignore their disconnect as Adam tells Beth he needs her, and Beth tells Adam his need for her is not enough. And as Beth’s own family is torn apart by her father’s illegal actions, committed not for the benefit of them but for another woman, we see a very real basis for Beth’s desire to know that her life and relationships aren’t just about tangible promises and physical provisions but about relating to those she loves on a deeper level of almost illogical care and inexplicable connection.
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