Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Light Entertainment!, April 22, 2001
I have to say I enjoyed this film a great deal.As an Irish person it seems to me that almost all films set in Ireland seem to fall into two categories-the stage "Oirish" one of the Quiet Man or ones where there is so much poverty that outsiders must think that shoes only came to Ireland midway through the 20th century.This film reflects far more accurately what Dublin and Ireland is like today.Taking away the Irishness-it also works as a romantic comedy with witty and snappy dialogue and also with some great performances especially by the main stars Stuart Townsend and Kate Hudson. The film concentrates on a family's relationship with a character called Adam.This guy Adam is a bit of stud and has the ability to go from being super-confident,to thoughtful and caring and then also extra-sensitive.He basically adapts his personality to meet the needs of everyone he encounters.The family concerned are 3 daughters,a son and a mother.At the start of the film it concentrates on the relationship between Townsend and Hudson but you soon discover that the film breaks up into three short stories.Yet all the stories take place during the same time period.Each story is dealt with almost in it's own entity,but it cleverly shows each story from the daughters perspective.So you get to see the same scenes replayed but from a different perspective. Each one of the daughters is very different in personality.The first story is an almost conventional romance between Hudson and Townsend.This meeting introduces Adam to the family and the rest of the family subsequently fall for him in their own particular way.Yet each of the daughters are so different in personality that makes each short story very interesting in it's own right. The dialogue is excellent and very sharp-witted.The dialogue isn't overly dramatic and is sort of based on normal every day situations.The peripheral characters add a great deal to the over-all comedy of this film.In fact many of them are involved in show-stopping moments,e.g. Hudson's ex-boyfriend,the eldest sister's husband.Throughout the film you find yourself suffering from a tension due to the amount of close-shaves Adam has.Townsend carries off the role with amazing style and panache and I'm sure he's going to go on to be a great star of the future. Overall it's a funny and yet very light-hearted story.This isn't a thought provoking movie at all and aspects of the film do not linger with you long after it's gone.Basically it's a very entertaining,"feel good" sort of movie that will brighten up the working week.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Surprisingly refreshing and witty., September 28, 2003
I managed to catch this one on the independant film channel, and I'm glad I did.
We all know romantic comedies are a dime a dozen, and though I admit to being a sucker for some, I always know the plots are predictable. Some I just watch because of who's in them, and hope that they'll be different. I lose on that score, often.
Well, this one was different. Sure, there's a love story (is there?), but there are a lot of side stories going on here.
Adam is introduced to us in a typical sort of fashion, like many love stories, and begins romancing Kate Hudson, and it seems like your regular fare, right? Sure, they are attractive, charming, but what's so special about this movie?
Well, THEN he meets the family, and that's when things get.....interesting. Told from three sisters' perspectives, it was a refreshing way to show how this Adam is seen by each person, and to see what was happening in each scene, as some are repeated, BUT from a different POV, which makes them seem new. Even one of the men seems to fall for him, as Adam is "all things to all people". Which seems to be what he's there for. But just who is Adam, really? Well, regardless of the movie's title, we never really know for certain. It's really about these OTHER people, see. Adam is never shown as himself (or is he?), only as he's perceived by others.
It is a real ensemble effort, and all of the actors are engaging in this film, down to the smallest parts. I believe it's Francis that plays the "repressed", bookish sister, and she is really wonderful in this movie.
I do have to note Stuart seems to fit the part like a glove, he's a pleasure to watch. Another actor might not have pulled off what he did..and that was to be so charming, so attractive, and somehow seem sincere (even though that's highly questionable) enough that I about forgave him, when I should hate him.
He's a cad..but somehow things work out. If you have sisters, especially, you should probably be appalled..and yet it's so damn...charming.
It's a bit self relevatory, if you ask yourself "what would I have done"?I'll freely admit..I probably would have said "what the hell, why not"?
(then again, I dont have sisters!) So, you may be appalled at the morals of these characters, which seems to be the critique of many who didnt like it, but leave the "real world" for a time and just watch the story unfold. Good acting, clever dialogue, film editing and a different sort of story than the norm, makes it a guilty pleasure. (And Stuart is just too yummy, at the risk of sounding like a schoolgirl. He's also a fine actor)
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18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Glorious romantic comedy even more fascinating than it seems, February 14, 2001
On one level this is a delightfully refreshing romantic comedy from, despite its title, a female point of view, as three sisters (and a sexually insecure brother) are transformed by their relationship with a mysterious, beautiful stranger (shades of 'Theorem', and Stuart Townsend is a ringer for the young Stamp). Told in four witness accounts, Adam's personality, filtered by others' subjectivity, becomes the central mystery, so that the film is less 'about' Adam than asking, what is Adam about? Set in a fantasy, middle-class Dublin in a swinging 60s stylee, the film exhilerates and amuses, proving Frances O'Conner to be unequalled among young actresses today, and Kate Hudson quite easily, and adorably, living up to the hype. On another, less obvious, level, 'About Adam' is a stringent satire-cum-warning about the complacency and selfishness of Ireland's new economy boom. But that's just me.
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