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ADAM RESURRECTED Send This Review to a Friend
It is easy to see why Jeff Goldblum would want to star in “Adam Resurrected,” a well-meaning mess of a film directed by Paul Schrader in an oh-so-arty style. Goldblum not only gets to chew the scenery but he also gets to bark like a dog. Given the film's serious intent, what actor could resist the opportunity?
The film is a serious if bizarre effort with a screenplay by Israeli writer Noah Stollman based on the 1968 novel by Yoram Kaniuk. Goldblum plays Adam Stein, who was known as a German cabaret star. But imprisoned during the Holocaust, he becomes the plaything of a cruel Nazi commandant (Willem Dafoe), who treats him like a dog—literally—and makes him behave and bark like one. It is a pathetic existence that Stein trades for survival.
In the post-war period, he becomes a patient in an Israeli insane asylum in the Negev. What’s not very credible is Stein being able to have the extent of freedom of movement he enjoys in the place, including sex with an attractive nurse (Ayelet Zurer). Goldblum works hard to make Stein a larger-than-life character, as he spars with the head doctor (Derek Jacobi) and exercises influence over other inmates.
But there is a serious challenge for Stein. There is a boy inmate who is behaving like a dog. In fact, he believes he is a dog. Stein, drawing upon his own camp experience, sees himself in a position to reach and aid the boy. Success would help Adam regain his own humanity.
But the film is so nutty in many ways that one is hard-pressed to take it seriously, and one can grow tired of Stein as we follow his antics in the asylum even though in the flashbacks we can suffer with him when he is being abused by the Nazi. “Adam Resurrected” is a thoroughly oddball film that raises serious issues without really being satisfactory. A Bleiberg Entertainment release.
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