Wolfe announced this past week that director Rhys
Ernst’s film adaptation of Ariel Schrag’s 2014 novel, Adam,
will be making its DVD debut on Dec. 3.
The film opened at Sundance in January of this year
and has generated controversy outside of the festival circuit — audiences who
have actually had a chance to catch Adam at
such venues as Outfest, Provincetown Film Festival, Inside Out, São Paulo
International Film Festival, etc., have generated positive responses to the
Ernst’s film.
It is 2006 and Adam (played by Nicholas Alexander — Fist
Fight) has arrived at the summer of his junior
year in high school. In September he
will be a senior, then high school will end and … well, what next? He’s not sure of anything in his life right
now and it is driving his mother crazy.
The solution, go spend the summer with your sister
in New York City. His sister, Casey (Margaret
Qualley — who scored big time with her performance as “Pussycat” in Quentin
Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood,
plus such films as Strange But True, Native
Son … and an Emmy nomination for her performance
as Ann Reinking in the Fosse/Verdon
mini-series), is an activist lesbian who blends right in with LGBTQ community
of the city.
Adam, a teenager, is a true fish out of water and
his sister is a force of nature, which sets the table for what is to come. What happens when a “mainstream” kid enters
the world of the “marginalized” and culturally-appropriates “their world”
because he falls in love?
When Schrag wrote her book, based on that conceit,
there were calls for boycotts and the backlash was fierce. It is, however, an age-old concept, an
outcast “blends” in with the mainsteam through deceit and then things get very
complicated when little lies grow. Or, similarly,
when an outcast finds something in the common culture that puts them at odds
with friends and foes alike (example: Blinded
by the Light — Javed (Viveik Kalra) discovers
the music of Bruce Springsteen and that creates a riff between him and his
family, while he is spit-on by his classmates for being a Pakistani-born Brit).
Schrag flipped it around and certain people went
crazy. Ariel Schrag is a terrific
writer, who not only has the “Adam” book to her credit, but has written for
such series as How To
Make It In America and The L
Word … and is also a graphic novelist with such works as “Stuck in the
Middle: 17 Comics from an Unpleasant Age” and “Ariel and Kevin Invade
Everything!” The attacks, simply, are
not warranted.
Should attacks be made
upon Tootsie? Or Mrs. Doubtfire? What about Victor/Victoria? A story, a comedy, well-told is just
that. Adam is a well-told story
with a flip.
As to the movie itself, we are introduced to Adam,
who is straight, a virgin and we learn that the high school girls that move within
his circle don’t really interest him. Once
banished to New York City for the summer, his sister, Casey, takes him into her
world of political rallies and the LGBTQ club scene and it is here that he
finds the young woman of his dreams, Gillian (Bobbi Salvör Menuez/India Menuez
— as Toby in the I Love Dick
sitcom, plus such films as Nocturnal Animals, The Breakup Girl).
Gillian is a waif-like red head, who is smart,
friendly and gay. She too takes a
liking to Adam, but makes the assumption that he is a trans and he makes the
leap of going down the rabbit hole by not being honest with her. It gets better, he also tells her that he is
a college student at Berkeley, spending the summer with his sister before
heading back to his studies … hey, in for a penny, in for a pound, so to speak.
Casey and some of her friends, including Ethan (Leo
Sheng) know of Adam’s “predicament” and he begs them to go along with him being
a college student … and more.
Adam is a
fun film as we enjoy the adventures — make that, amazing adventure — of a “fish
out of water” … and filmmaker Rhys Ernst manages to not only tell a nice story,
but makes some points along the way.
Wolfe’s timing for the release of Adam on
DVD is terrific. Not only is there the
buzz about the book and the movie, which will bring out the curious who have
not had a chance to catch the film during its festival run. Additionally, when Sony Pictures Home
Entertainment finally gets around to releasing Once Upon
a Time in … Hollywood to the home entertainment
marketplace, Margaret Qualley’s performance as Pussycat could have some
crossover power here.
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