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Adam

ADAM (Max Mayer). 99 minutes. Opens Friday (August 7). For venues, times and trailers, see Movies.


All it takes for the titular man-child Adam to score the fetching girl next door is an in-house planetarium and knowledge of where raccoons live in Central Park.[rssbreak]

It doesn’t matter that Adam, played by Hugh Dancy, suffers from Asperger’s, a form of high-functioning autism that suppresses empathy and makes for some awkward one-way conversations. The girl, Beth (Rose Byrne), is his from the moment he says “Big Dipper.” If the dating game were that easy, we could all feign Asperger’s.

This is the make-believe that handicaps an otherwise charming coming-of-age romance. Think of it as a Sundance-issue Forrest Gump – even Adam notes the similarity when he’s handed a box of chocolates.

Dancy’s performance carries the film. Each moment that Adam must speak, listen and react, Dancy controls every facial muscle, every twitch, to reveal an internal struggle. And he’s often very funny, in the foreigner-at-the-party sort of way, when trying to decipher social codes and conversations that never literally mean what’s being said.

Unfortunately, the movie surrounding Adam doesn’t quite measure up, particularly when it comes to Byrne’s character, a thinly drawn neurotic with daddy issues.

But Byrne acquits herself well, considering the difficulty of bringing three-dimensionality to a character defined by her appreciation of idiosyncrasy and raccoons.

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