Adam

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Subtlety and nuance mark both the film's dialogue and performances. It's hard to see how Dancy and Byrne could be any better.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The tendency for an actor in a role like this is to overact. The result is often disastrous, reducing a character into a caricature. Hugh Dancy, adopting an American accent as effectively as the mannerisms of someone on the moderate portion of the Asperger's spectrum, makes Adam believable and generally sympathetic.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

The beautifully crafted Adam offers no pat or easy answers.

San Francisco Chronicle Amy Biancolli

It's the speed of love, not the speed of light, that occupies Adam, a small, sweet movie about one man's widening cosmos.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams

It may not be original, but Adam could leave a lump in your throat.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

When it's not lapsing into disease-of-the-week prose, Adam presents a credible account of the challenges inherent in this misunderstood and often-ridiculed condition.

Washington Post Dan Kois

At its best, Adam makes the viewer understand the frustration of living in a world in which everyone is a stranger -- not least by making us work as hard to understand its hero's feelings as Adam himself must work to understand Beth's.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

A sensitive but not sentimental story about a romance involving a mentally challenged young man never makes a misstep.

Variety Justin Chang

Emotionally potent performances, gently offbeat humor and writer-helmer Max Mayer's assured touch guide this tender New York love story to a quietly hopeful conclusion.

The New York Times Jeannette Catsoulis

The humor is delicate, and the performances sweet and sure; the script (by the director, Max Mayer) is not entirely predictable, and the Manhattan locations (lovingly photographed by Seamus Tierney) have a starry-eyed glaze.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

It's hard to buy this relationship even for a moment. Adam is sweet, meticulous, and, at times, sort of clever, but it's also a not-quite-surprising-enough heartwarming trifle.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Adam is a cut above most romances and boasts a intriguing conclusion. One comes away with a sense of hope, leavened by realism.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Adam wraps up their story in too tidy a package, insisting on finding the upbeat in the murky, and missing the chance to be more thoughtful about this challenging situation.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The most daring thing about Adam, the story of a young man with Asperger's syndrome, is that there isn't a scene in which someone stops to explain exactly what Asperger's IS.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The climax and epilogue are the juiciest, most tough-minded bits in the movie. Too bad Mayer didn't work his way backward from the end.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

It can be argued that Adam uses Asperger's as a kind of metaphor for the barriers that people erect to fend off strangers, to guard against intimacy. It can also be argued that writer/director Mayer is shamelessly manipulative.

Empire Anna Smith

A very superficial look at what it may be like trying to romance someone on the autistic scale.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Adam succeeds at getting inside its hero's mind and, more impressively still, gives us entrée to his singular soul.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Dancy’s character has difficulty processing information and dealing with emotion, but even he could probably see through this schmaltz.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Beyond that educational element and the delicate performances of Dancy and Byrne, I found Adam dramatically limp, predictable and in a curious way even retrograde.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Is a man with Asperger’s boyfriend material? It’s difficult to determine how we wind up here, but it’s strange that a movie ostensibly about a man and his lack of social options left me depressed about a woman and hers.

Village Voice Ella Taylor

Other than Rose Byrne's on-screen radiance and a soothingly warm palette lit by cinematographer Seamus Tierney, there's not much to get passionate about in this amiable chamberpiece from theater director Max Mayer.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter

Were it not for the fine engaging performances of both Dancy and Byrne, Adam would be sickly sweet.

Chicago Reader Cliff Doerksen

As predictable as the alphabet but should hold particular appeal to women whose maternal impulses inflect their mating instincts.

New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott

As well-intended as it is, writer-director Max Mayer's film lacks focus.

Film Threat Jessica Baxter

I find nearly every film about mentally challenged characters excruciating to watch...None of these movies ever come close to accurately depicting what it’s like to live with mental challenges.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

This is the kind of movie in which every other line of dialogue feels like a metaphor – and from there on, the film seesaws between the uncomfortable extremes of glum and twee: an overwrought dirge keyed to a xylophonic ping.