Search - Adam Resurrected on DVD

Such a Disappointment

Melissa | 10/12/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Adam Stein (Jeff Goldblum) was the most celebrated clown in Germany. While in a concentration camp, a Nazi officer (William Defoe) decided to keep Adam for his own personal entertainment having him spend more than a year as his dog. Years after the war, Adam is in an institution for survivors of the Holocaust. One day he finds a young patient that believes he is dog.

It was told from the year 1961 and had flash backs over a period of twenty years. The flash backs to the concentration camps while, I'm sure were meant to be very moving could have been clips from just about WWII movie. I don't know if the emotion was left out of the writing or the acting, but scenes of this nature are inherently affecting. The only one that came close to being poignant was where Adam lost his family.

The `present' story was unbelievable; perhaps not so much the story, as the actions of most of the characters. Goldblum does an amazing job of acting, and there is no way to predict the psychological effects of everything his character endured. Also, with an asylum there is lots of room for varied and unusual personalities. One character that I think is amazing is that of "Wolfie". The problem I have is that almost all the doctors and staff cede authority to Adam. They let him have free run of the facility and organization of it. It seems as if he runs it, instead of the doctors. Don't even start me on what is wrong with the head nurse, who should be a patient herself instead of in charge of them. I found it very hard to believe that any type of facility would have a staff that would let the patients run the place. To add to the improbability of the movie the young boy makes this huge amazing break through just because Adam comes into his life.

I was really excited when I saw the trailer for this movie. It looked unbelievably moving, and the reviews were really strong. Then watching it, it fell really flat. I think the biggest problem this movie had was that it tried to tackle too much, and ended up skimming the surface of what would be several powerful possibilities for a movie. While it shows Adam interacting with the boy there is little focus on the bond that he could have formed with the boy and how he helps him. It spends a great part of the movie showing Adam spontaneously wounding himself with no physical explanation (internal bleeding, other forms of bleeding and wounds with no cause or explanation) that take movie time and are not explained in the movie. Maybe the DVD extras explain, but I wasn't interested enough to find out. I would have liked to see more of an attempt to explain or help the viewer understand Adam. The one scene that I felt really gave an insight was when he went to his daughter's grave. And the clips in the mental hospital are I believe meant to be dark humor, but just don't quite ring true. I already mentioned the shallow emotional depth of the camp flashbacks.

To sum it up, the movie was a disappointment. It looked like it would be a heartrending drama about a recovering Holocaust survivor. One who had been tortured in a most unusual way, because he had the unique ability to impersonate animals. This same survivor would latter find redemption and renovation in an institution years later by helping cure a young boy. In reality, it was a hot mess with some high and very low points in acting. It focused more on the randomness that was Adam's life and left the viewer feeling wanting.
"