''About Adam'' is a 2000
romantic comedy
Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a sub-genre of comedy and Romance novel, romance fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount all obstacles. Ro ...
film
A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...
written and directed by
Gerard Stembridge and starring
Kate Hudson,
Stuart Townsend, and
Frances O'Connor. The plot focuses on the effect a seductive young man has on four siblings.
Plot
Adam is a young
Dublin
Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
er who ingratiates himself into the Owens family after meeting Lucy at the restaurant where she waits tables and sings. While wooing her, he becomes involved with her more reserved older sister Laura, a romantic literary type who spends most of her time at the library; her oldest married sister Alice, a new mother who is unhappy with her boring husband Martin; and her brother David, who seeks Adam's advice on how to seduce his repressed girlfriend, only to find himself nearly succumbing to Adam's charms himself.
Revisits are made to several scenes, each seen from the
point-of-view of a different character.
Cast
*
Stuart Townsend as Adam
*
Kate Hudson as Lucy Owens
*
Frances O'Connor as Laura Owens
*
Rosaleen Linehan as Peggy Owens
*
Charlotte Bradley as Alice Owens Rooney
*Alan Maher as David Owens
*Brendan Dempsey as Martin Rooney
Production
Kate Hudson performs "The Man I Love" by
George and
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin (born Israel Gershovitz; December 6, 1896 – August 17, 1983) was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs in the English language of the ...
, "You Do Something to Me" by
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Many of his songs became Standard (music), standards noted for their witty, urbane lyrics, and many of his scores found success on Broadway the ...
, and "All the Way" by
Sammy Cahn and
Jimmy Van Heusen
James Van Heusen (born Edward Chester Babcock; January 26, 1913 – February 6, 1990) was an American composer. He wrote songs for films, television, and theater, and won an Emmy and four Academy Award for Best Original Song, Academy Awards for ...
. During the closing credits,
Peggy Lee performs "Sisters" by
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin (born Israel Isidore Beilin; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-born American composer and songwriter. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook. Berlin received numerous honors including an Acade ...
.
The film premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023.
The festival has acted ...
in January 2000 and was shown at the
Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...
in July 2000 but wasn't released theatrically until it opened in Ireland in January 2001. It was given a very limited release in the U.S., where it grossed $159,668.
Critical reception
Stephen Holden of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' said "Guilt-free and nearly devoid of erotic angst, ''About Adam'' is the flip side of movies like ''
Teorema'', ''Something for Everyone'' and those slogging
Tennessee Williams dramas in which an irresistible, omnisexual stud is often an angel of death. Here he is an angel of sexual health in an impossibly euphoric world where sibling rivalry and sexual jealousy are only passing twinges of discomfort, not consuming passions. The movie's blissful spirits coincide with its portrait of modern, freshly-scrubbed-looking Dublin as the closest thing to Fun City the British isles have to offer nowadays."
Emanuel Levy of ''
Variety'' called the film "smartly sexy," a "brightly observed narrative," and "a frolic free of any judgments ... marked by Stembridge's sparkling wit." He added, "Stembridge plays with shifting perspectives in a fresh manner that defies expectations of the romantic genre ... This literate ensembler is propelled by talent behind and in front of the camera. Townsend, who physically resembles the young
Terence Stamp, is perfectly cast as the dark, spirited outsider. Rest of the mostly female cast is equally deft and attractive."
Maitland McDonagh of ''
TV Guide
TV Guide is an American digital media
In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...
'' rated it three out of four stars, calling it "sweet, likable and consistently engaging, if so insubstantial that it's always on the verge of blowing away" and adding, "Townsend pulls off the unenviable job of making Adam a
chameleon-like seducer without allowing him to seem like a cad or a callous sexual opportunist ... Stembridge deftly balances genre expectations with just enough stylistic flourishes to make it feel surprisingly fresh. The movie starts to fade from memory as soon as it's over, but for an hour and a half it's a pleasantly diverting lark."
References
External links
*
* {{rotten-tomatoes, about_adam
2000 films
Irish romantic comedy-drama films
British romantic comedy-drama films
American romantic comedy-drama films
Films set in Dublin (city)
BBC Film films
2000 romantic comedy-drama films
2000s English-language films
2000s American films
2000s British films
2000s Irish films
English-language romantic comedy-drama films