Adam’s Apples begins when a Neo-Nazi who, after being sentenced to community service at a church, arrives to meet the eccentric and overly optimistic vicar running the place. Ivan, the vicar, is happy to welcome Adam into their odd family, which includes a former child tennis star turned drunk, a Saudi Arabian immigrant, Ivan’s handicapped son, and a pregnant woman. Hilarity ensues.
Dark, dark hilarity, to be honest. I don’t want to delve too far into the specific moments of comedy in this film because I’d feel guilty depriving folks of actually enjoying the unexpected turns of it all. With certain films I expect a type of gruesome dark comedy–like Burn After Reading–but the opening attitude of this film gave no warning signs of the abrupt darkling comic moments ahead, and you find yourself outright chortling during a graphic shooting or at a picture of Hitler.
In the movie the religious component cannot be avoided, as it’s apparent from the opening scene that Adam’s character is crying out for redemption. (Thanks to a minister father who adores movies, I’ve grown up with a lot of film analysis from an intelligent religious perspective) As we settle in for a funny romp about a neo-nazi out of his depth with a kooky vicar, we are surprised with raw comic writing confronting major issues like abortion, death, and suicide. This brilliant trick played on the audience comes to light as the story unravels the vicar’s disheartening past and it’s revealed Ivan may be living a modern life of Job, one unexpectedly unfortunate step at a time.
A most refreshing aspect of the movie was definitely the happy ending, or at least form of such. I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say the movie followed general comedy conventions and provided satisfying conclusions for the majority of the characters. The writers had obviously written themselves toward that point, however round-aboutly it took, but there are just so many dark comedies unwilling to relent with the darkness or cynicism and it’s much more fun to watch a deeply troubling story resolve happily for those involved, just as it did for Job.
Available on Netflix in the foreign film area, I must warn it’s from Denmark, so in Danish with English subtitles. When you get started be prepared for a quick pace because the jokes come quickly and unexpectedly. I hope you’re willing to give it a try and if you do I’d love to hear your comments about it!
Critical Dan 