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Adam & Eve review
:. Director: Paul Harather
:. Starring: Simon Schwarz, Marie Bäumer
:. Running Time: 1:36
:. Year: 2003
:. Country: Germany
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Can a romantic comedy be funny, a bit poetic and have a thematic edge? This answer is yes, at least in Germany where censorship and frigid conservatism don't get in the way of making films for adults.
After 10 years of marriage, thirtysomething husband and wife Adam (Simon Schwarz) & Eve (Marie Bäumar) are bored with each other. Adam is tempted by a forbidden fruit—a Lolita-esque baby sitter—while Eve would like to start a family. After an extremely funny and provocative scene where Eve and her family discover he is cheating on her, their lives break apart. Eve gets back with a former lover, while Adam gets dumped by his girlfriend and end up staying with a childhood friend who's always been in love with him.
Adam is like a teenager, careless and shameless, but lovable while Eve is more grounded though she misses Adam's sparks. While the two find happiness in their new lives, they still have a connection: they are not only sexual partners but soulmates. If it were an American film, you know they would get back together, but Harather's solution is somewhere else, in an arithmetic formula that adds several human beings to the equation: love and bodies can be shared, as long as there is a sense of purity in terms of feelings.
Filled with humor and a touch of melancholy, Paul Harather's film advances, following the two characters' paths in the tones of romantic comedy, but makes sure to break an expectedly predictable storyline by inserting strong dose of provocation and dark humor. From a real estate agent dying in his car to a hilarious and graphic sex scene, an infamous Santa Claus masturbation scene and an immoral but logical ending, Harther keeps surprising us at the thematic, narrative (Tarantino-style) and visual (the representation of polygamist relationships) levels, making Adam & Eve a forbidden fruit we'd love to bite into.
Fred Thom
 Movie Reviews: 1998 - 2011
Movie Reviews: 2012 - present
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