Reviewer's Rating 3 out of 5 Ìý User Rating 4 out of 5
About Adam (2001)
15

Here's a splendidly amoral Irish comedy in the vein of "Four Weddings and a Funeral". Adam (Stuart Townsend) is a charmer who drops into a chic Dublin bistro one night where Alice (Kate Hudson), who sings between waiting tables, is doing a number. Instantly smitten by the new customer, she is soon dating him. In no time her mother, two sisters, and brother are delighted and a wedding is in the offing. What she doesn't know is that Laura (Frances O'Connor), her bookishly romantic sister has also been swept off her feet and is in a secret affair. What both don't know is that their married sister Alice (Charlotte Bradley) has also yielded, and even more surprisingly, their brother David (Alan Maher), suffering from an unobliging girlfriend, is sexually aroused by Adam.

Their tales are all told in the first person, with "Rashomon"-style overlaps, each from a different perspective. But Adam, far from being a prize philanderer and unscrupulous scoundrel brings pleasure and contentment all round. It's like a witty Hibernian twist on the old Pasolini movie "Teorema", in which Terence Stamp descended on and seduced an entire household, leaving everyone bemused.

The writer-director Gerard Stembridge capably balances the potentially unstable narrative, and the performances are fully rounded. Kate Hudson, who filmed this before "Almost Famous", is actually better and sings her torch songs with appropriate feeling. Stuart Townsend succeeds in making his character completely likeable in spite of the deceit. It's good to see prosperous modern Dubliners on-screen behaving like the denizens of Notting Hill, just about as far as you can get from the priests, pigs, and poverty that stereotype so many Irish films.

Read a review of the "About Adam" DVD.

End Credits

Director: Gerard Stembridge

Writer: Gerard Stembridge

Stars: Stuart Townsend, Kate Hudson, Frances O'Connor, Charlotte Bradley, Rosaleen Linehan, Tommy Tiernan, Alan Maher, Brendan Dempsey

Genre: Comedy, Romance

Length: 105 minutes

Cinema: 30 March 2001

Country: Ireland/UK

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