Adam is the best movie ever because it highlights not only the Cassini mission, but my famous blue and red false-color false-image ultraviolet image of the rings (see banner of this blog) as well. But even if you take that out, it’s still a very good movie, just maybe not the best movie ever (which actually has to be Deep Impact (see “About Josh Colwell” in the blog). Okay, enough self-promotion. Adam is a young man with Asperger’s Syndrome, a mental condition in the “autism spectrum” as it is put to Beth, an elementary school teacher and neighbor of Adam’s who is considering dating him. Adam (Hugh Dancy, excellent) likes his routines. He is an amateur astronomer with encyclopedic knowledge and a lack of awareness of when to stop spouting facts in casual conversation. He designs toys for a small company, but cannot resist the urge to make them more intricate and therefore more expensive and less marketable. But they are pretty cool.
Beth (Rose Byrne, charming) is also cool. After some understandable initial hesistancy (Adam asks Beth if she was sexually aroused during their walk in the park, because he was and his “mind blindness” used to cause him to assume everyone felt the same way he does; now he just asks), Beth starts dating Adam. It is a touching love story. Adam is both intelligent and capable in some regards, and childlike and helpless in others. His inability to read emotions makes Beth wonder about the nature of the emotions he feels. If she tells him she loves him, what does that mean to him? Can she live with a man who needs to be instructed to hug her when she is sad or hurt? The movie, written and directed by Max Mayer whose previous experience was directing television and one adapted screenplay, lets their story unfold naturally. It never feels manipulative or concocted. I found both characters interesting and likable, with a believable relationship whose outcome I was nevertheless unsure about.
i liked that movie a lot. But I have to say that the best movie ever award goes to (drum roll please…) TITANIC