About Adam (2001)

I wanted to but couldn't!

Expected more

Brilliant and touching

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

We found this one on Netflix streaming movies. Not very high-brow but my wife and I enjoyed it for light entertainment. Especially with cute Kate Hudson in it, putting on her very best Irish accent.Kate Hudson is Lucy Owens , Dublin area waitress who also sings at the restaurant. (Yes, she does her own singing.) According to comments her family members make, she seems to change boyfriends about every week.But one day cute Stuart Townsend as Adam comes in to the establishment, she falls quickly for him, even asking if she can see him again, and he gives her his phone number. At their first date he meets all of her family members, her mother, her brother, and her two older sisters. Frances O'Connor is Laura Owens, Charlotte Bradley is Alice Owens Rooney, and Alan Maher is David Owens. The story is told from several points of view, each with a different experience with Adam. In essence he ends up seducing each sister, and has the brother wondering if he is being turned homosexual, after finding himself in bed with Adam and with a stiffy.As it turns out Adam is a nice guy, and when he marries Lucy we think they will have a happy life together. Adam just doesn't like to disappoint anyone, even sisters or the brother of his bride!

Oh my. I don't think i've ever felt so insulted as a woman in my life. At the centre of this film, we have the decidedly average looking Adam (Townsend) who, despite being wet, wimpy and rather pathetic, is supposed to be gorgeous. If you forget don't worry, the film will remind you every 30 seconds, complete with the underlying message that if you don't fancy him, there must be something wrong with you. Whether you're male or female. Watch as both men and women reduce themselves to gibbering idiots and lose all self respect over his alleged gorgeousness. Watch as he messes all of them around, plays them against each other and runs roughshod over their emotions, while the film assures you he has the right to. Cringe, at Frances O'Connor's ridiculously over the top neurotic acting, achieving little more than bringing her character across as mentally ill. Worst of all, that's it. You wait for something happen to the redeem the film, but it doesn't. It's not a joke, it really means it. Awful awful awful.

Lucy (Kate Hudson, with a pretty good accent) is the youngest of three sisters in London. She and her slightly older sister, Laura (Frances O'Connor) still live at home with their mother, due to monetary circumstances. Lucy is a singing waitress at a cafe and Laura is a graduate student at the university. As it so often happens, the two younger sisters are complete opposites. Lucy is a beautiful and outgoing gal who has been through a ton of boyfriends while Laura is shy and saving herself for a truly great romance. One day, a new, handsome man, Adam (Stuart Townsend) enters the cafe where Lucy works. She is smitten and invites him out on a date. He accepts. Soon they are quite close and thinking about their future together. Yet, one day Laura meets Adam when she is out and about and they find they, too, have a strong mutual attraction. If they follow their impulses, what will be the consequences? This is an appealing romcom, mostly due to the very good-looking performers, but it has a bizarre plot that challenges the normal boundaries of a successful love story. Without giving too much away, the film could easily have been called Adam and the Three Sisters. As such, the boy meets girl concept here becomes more boy meets girl, girl, girl, with surprising results. Then, too, although the costumes are wonderful (Hudson has never looked lovelier) and the settings quite nice, the actors have a thick British accent that is sometimes difficult to follow. Therefore, while the production values are of the highest standards, making the film look great, beware romcom fans. If your idea of a successful, comedic love tale insists upon a man having only one true love, this may not be the film for you. Even so, most romance fans are eager to find a new watch and will probably accept this one as an interesting diversion for an evening.

It's amazing what little gems turn up on late night television. I was about to go to bed when this came on: I got to bed two hours later and spent the next hour laughing.This film is a beautiful light comedy with an unlikely story line, but an ingenious script. It is set in the posh end of Dublin and proves (yet again, if it should be necessary) that Ireland is a lot more than civil war, Catholic repression and dire poverty.It is like one of those glossy romantic comedies of the 1960's in a modern setting. What amazed me was that two of the actresses who played the sisters, seriously pretty Kate Hudson and dark quiet Frances O'Connor, are not Irish at all. Congratulations to dialogue coach, Gerry Grennell - that's not the same Gerry Grennell that plays classical guitar, is it? Two other performances stand out: stylish Charlotte Bradley (a Dub, but not from the posh end) and the evergreen Ros Linehan. Not forgetting the eponymous Adam, Stuart Townsend - what a dream role that was! Anyone who complains about lack of in depth characterisation has probably been watching too much Ingmar Bergman and lost the ability to enjoy a first class light comedy. Real life credibility is not what comedies are about - you just go with the flow and enjoy, despite what appears to have been a family trait of making love almost fully clothed.