About Adam [2001]

When Lucy Owen (Kate Hudson) meets handsome Adam (Stuart Townsend) she thinks she has finally found her perfect man. Even better, he seems to get on well with her close-knit family, and rapidly wins the approval of her two sisters Laura (Frances O’Connor) and Alice (Charlotte Bradley). But when the devlish charmer seduces first Laura, then Alice, and even begins to turn the head of younger brother David (Alan Maher), it seems the family might be getting a little too close-knit for comfort.
Directed by playwright Gerard Stembridge, About Adam is a charmingly funny romantic comedy set against an unusually trendy Dublin backdrop. Adam (Stuart Townsend) is the sweetly bashful young man for whom singing bistro waitress Lucy (Kate Hudson) falls. She introduces him to her family who adore him, she proposes marriage to him from onstage, he accepts. However, in a clever series of flashbacks and alternative narrative perspectives, we see that Adam has shown very different sides of his character and told a very different story about himself in seducing Lucy’s bookish sister Laura (Frances O’Connor), her older, unhappily married sister Alice (Charlotte Bradley) and even inducing a deeply embarrassing boyish infatuation in young brother David. Two questions arise; which of these is the “real” Adam? And will he be exposed and punished as a bounder?
The resolution, when it comes, is as pleasingly unpredictable as the film itself, which not only resolutely avoids the usual rustic clichés of skirling soundtracks and verdant scenery usually deployed in Irish films, but, in its deceptively light way, poses some pertinent questions about romance, fidelity and truth, while filling you with a warm glow.
On the DVD: Presented in audio options 5.1 and 2.0. The disc contains various extras, including trailer, interviews with cast and director (in which Gerard Stembridge explains that Adam is “a joke on the New Man”) and b-roll footage. However, the interviews are sloppily edited, while the b-roll footage consists of little than various inconsequential outtakes, which look like they’ve been grabbed randomly from the cutting room floor and sellotaped together. –David Stubbs