Adam & Paul Movie Review:


Billed as "Laurel & Hardy on smack in Dublin", this ragged little film takes us through 24 hours in the life of two heroin addicts as they roam the streets looking for their next fix. It's extremely grim, but surprisingly endearing.

Adam & Paul (O'Halloran and Murphy) are inseparable friends who wake up on a mattress in a field outside Dublin. They wander the streets encountering friends who seem fed up with them, thugs who don't want them around and various people who will either victimise them or be victimised by them. But they're having very little luck in their quest for drugs. And as night approaches it's all starting to look fairly hopeless as each seat-of-the-pants scam goes spectacularly wrong.

Yes, it's rather difficult to sympathise with these losers, especially when they indulge in cruelty and fail so wretchedly to maintain their relationships. The people who know them sigh audibly when they approach, hinting that they've been like this for rather a long time. But we do see one moment of tenderness (when they cuddle an ex-girlfriend's baby) that tells us there's a glimmer of humanity left inside them.

The film is the grimmest of black comedies, set in filthy estates with seedy characters everywhere. But there's just enough pathos woven in--a mix of dignity and humiliation that make these inarticulate dopes more like homeless puppies than low-life scum. O'Halloran's free-form script feels completely aimless, but actually has a tight circular structure. And Abrahamson's direction is assured as well, making the most of the real-life settings with James Mather's striking cinematography.

On the other hand, there are stretches that feel dull and meandering--scene after scene in which this duo pointlessly encounters someone and fails to communicate. They're inept and sad; Adam's surliness a contrast to Paul's accident-prone haplessness. And when they start preying on those even weaker than themselves, it gets very ugly. But O'Halloran and Murphy somehow manage to keep a spark of humour in every scene, turning this Trainspotting-lite movie into a surprisingly sweet/bleak journey to the other side of the tracks.



Rich Cline

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