Review of Adam Resurrected (2008) by Jeffrey M — 20 Dec 2013

Adam Resurrected is, without question, the strangest Holocaust themed film I have seen, and likely will see. Based on a novel, the film follows Adam Stein, a magician that acted as a sort of clown/pet for a concentration camp commander. The film finds him in and out of bouts of insanity, followed by manic outbursts of what some considered to be brilliance.

What makes Adam Resurrected so strange is the tone. The film is simply all-over-the map. At times, it seems to be going for surreal and whimsical, other times it goes for serious and profound. None of this is ever achieved, as the film has no real dramatic anchoring. There are scenes that are seemingly inexplicable, dialogue that is both hard to understand and verbose. The tone shifts are so drastic, one can hardly take the film in. It's all too manic and kinetic in its approach. Schrader simply comes across as earnest, certainly, but helplessly bogged down in the film's own supposed cleverness, with no real sense of organic story-telling.

The lone bright spot with Adam Resurrected is Jeff Goldblum, who has a truly great performance. The problem, however, is that his character is simply awash in a film that is otherwise dramatically adrift, and devoid of focus.

2/5 Stars.