Adam Movie (2009)

A gem of a film...yet another little treasure overlooked at the cinema. I found this to be a very moving and very thought provoking film, and far removed from the typical rom-com.

"The death of his father leaves Adam (Hugh Dancy) living alone in the apartment they shared. When a friendly young woman named Beth (Rose Byrne) moves into the building, Adam doesn't know how to express his attraction--he has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism that prevents common human empathy. So he invites her into his apartment to experience his homemade planetarium and takes her to the park in the middle of the night to look at raccoons. Despite herself, Beth is intrigued. At first she's baffled by Adam, but when she learns the source of his awkwardness, she starts to appreciate Adam's honesty and lack of guile, particularly as family secrets start to emerge when her father is indicted for financial misdoings. Just as the nature of Asperger's Syndrome lifts Adam from the ranks of conventional romance, the committed and thoughtful performances by Dancy and Byrne keep Adam from being a disease-of-the-week movie or yet another ""mental handicap"" flick. The movie treats the problems of such a romance honestly, but also sees a kind of hope in the way these two grapple with their difficulties".