Film: Adam and Paul by Lenny Abrahamson
Rating: 9/10, unsubtle story of an unsubtle world, artfully told
Almost immediately, you know you are watching a reworking of Beckett’s classiest work. The action opens (and ends) in a Beckettsian wasteland where our heroes (renamed Adam and Paul because any junkie called Vladimir or Estragon would be laughed out of the methadone clinic) begin another aimless day. They could equally have been called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Like Beckett’s and Stoppard’s duos, they are really a single entity, utterly interchangeable. I never figured out which was Adam and which was Paul; it doesn’t matter. They have no idea who they are or where they’re going and, in an unspoken way, they know they are doomed and just want to get it over and done with as quickly and painlessly as possible. Until then, they need to get through each day and, like their predecessors who had people to meet and messages to deliver, they too have a mission – to get their daily fix. You know for sure they are Didi & Gogo when you hear their plan and the pleasure it gives Paul just to know they have one, however improvised:
(naming them arbitrarily)
Paul: ‘ere, do we have a plan?
Adam: … ehhm … into town …
P: … yeah?
A: … see who’s around … what’s goin’ on, like …
P: … yeah?
A: … get some money …
P: … yeah?
A: … and then … score.
P: Cool!
A: Yeah!
This is a funny film, hilarious at times, but neither Adam nor Paul nor anyone they encounter can see this because Adam and Paul are pure tragedy. Everyone knows they died long ago and are just waiting to stop breathing. With their first death went their humanity and watching them we cannot think of them as human. In a superb scene, shot in soft focus, we catch a glimpse of their erstwhile humanity when they share a moment’s intimacy with Orla and her baby. We thrill for a second to the thought that the director is going to reveal that they really are people and slump when we realise that it was a scene from an unrestorable past. They are beyond redemption now. Adam and Paul are depraved and self-centred creatures, focussed only on their daily provisioning task and, yet, so hopelessly unfit for survival in this wicked world that you can’t help loving them, but only in the way you love your pet Labrador. You flinch when they’re hurt and you forgive them when they err, but you know that living has become too painful and it is best if the vet administers the fatal dose.
