Adam review

A kooky love story that turns out a little too sickly-sweet

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Cutesy raccoon imagery and kooky astronomical asides aren’t enough to charm your gaze away from the core phoniness of Max Mayer’s low-key, autism-complicated romantic dramedy.

Rose Byrne is likeable enough as Beth, a worldly wise, well-to-do teacher whose new Manhattan neighbour is Adam (Hugh Dancy, again likeable) – an electronic engineer living alone after his dad’s death, whose geeky, data-spouting manner is a symptom of Asperger’s syndrome.

Mayer fumbles the script-work needed for the relationship to convince, often making Beth look more naïve about Asperger’s than a teacher should be. Instead, he offers marshmallow movie-moment contrivances – like a scene involving Adam’s home planetarium – before losing the plot on attention-sapping subplots.

Gently played gags include a well-timed jab at Forrest Gump, but the cookie-cutter characterisations, homily-heavy script and over-reliance on maudlin musical prompts are all too chocky-box icky in their own right.

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Freelance writer

Kevin Harley is a freelance journalist with bylines at Total Film, Radio Times, The List, and others, specializing in film and music coverage. He can most commonly be found writing movie reviews and previews at GamesRadar+.