Adam’s Apples is billed as a dark comedy, but it’s unclear as to why that would be. There are occasional bursts of laughs every so often, but the moments between them are so depressing that the thought of seeing it to get laughs is, well, crazy.
Ulrich Thomsen plays the titular character Adam, a violent and unrepentant neo-Nazi skinhead straight out of prison who’s paroled to live in a church run by a quirky minister, Father Ivan (Mads Mikkelsen), until he’s deem fit to rejoin society. Asked by Ivan to set himself a tangible goal, Adam snarks that he’d like to bake an apple pie, sealing the key to his freedom: guard the apple tree in the church garden until it’s time to harvest and bake the pie. It’s not an easy job, since troubles seem to follow this pie-cooking mission. Troubles so bizarre, that Father Ivan asserts to it being the work of the devil.
The film takes its cues from the Book of Job, with a twist, in the form of Father Ivan, who’s so unlucky (his loved ones all died and left him alone to take care of his paraplegic son) that he has a tumor the size of a volleyball. The only thing that keeps him alive is his sheer will, living in constant denial and believing that Satan is toying with him. Ticked off by his overzealous turn-the-other-cheek attitude, Adam makes it his new goal to shake Ivan’s faith, knowing that it’ll kill him.
Andrew Thomas Jensen has created a story that rests awkwardly between reality and fantasy, with situations that are deliberately implausible – explained as divine intervention – but never implausible enough that it can’t be dismissed as coincidence. The concept and the ideas all have potential for darkly funny scenes, but Jensen treats the issues tackled with such brood mood that it’s hard to laugh. The characters also mope and wallow in tragedy so often (aided by a sympathetic performance by Mads Mikkelsen) that to laugh at them would make you feel like you’re a Nazi. The film’s humor works its best when it goes over-the-top, like a scene where they shoo crows away from the apple tree with a handgun, which ends in tragedy, but the action is so absurd that it’s easy to laugh with the film. The character that provides the most laughs in Adam’s Apples, likewise, is a deranged gun-toting Arab immigrant who wouldn’t hesitate to release a bullet or two.
The battle of wits regarding faith between Adam and Ivan is an interesting concept, but quickly played out. It’s true to Adam’s Nazi background, but debates between them tend to end. Adam himself is a pretty inconsistent character in the film. He goes through enough that his transition from a hardass Nazi is believable, but it’s wildly inconsistent throughout the film. Sometimes he’s a helpful and shows care, the next he’s a brutal punk. Also, for a Hitler-heiling bigot, you’d think there would be a lot of conflict between him and the Arab character, which would have provided more opportunities for some deliciously black humor.
Adam’s Apples is a film full of potential that ends up being a confused and awkward blend. It’s not funny enough to be a comedy, and yet too brief and shallow to be anything insightful. Worse, for the most part it’s a real snooze. Scatters of comic highs here and there, and then a long stretch of aimless wandering around the church. The premise of “The Nazi and the Dying Priest” sounds like a good bedtime story, but maybe there’s not enough here to sustain a whole feature film.
It’s unfortunate, because the film’s positivity is truly sincere; and all the actors did a marvelous job bringing their characters to life. Andrew Thomas Jensen is also obviously a gifted writer, and the fault here mostly lies in the story's well being too dry to draw water from.
"Adam's Apples" opens March 16, 2007 and is rated . . Written by Anders Thomas Jensen.
