07/07/2005

Only one Irish film is being screened at the Brussels European Film Festival, however, it is a rather strong presence, offering the Flagey public the ultimate experience, a film somewhere between personnel degradation and corrosive comedy. Lenny Abrahamson's Adam and Paul puts an end to some of the Irish stereotypes usually shown on the big screen. No place for bucolic landscapes or Celtic music. No place either for a portrait of the northern areas of Dublin, from Roddy Doyle's novels, more than once adapted to film. In his first feature film, Abrahamson prefers to walk in another direction, decidely more personal and disturbing: the streets where characters torn apart by heroine stray.
Adam and Paul, trashy versions of Laurel and Hardy, have nothing to lose. The film follows the life of the two characters, totally lost between the search for drugs and the new ambivalent attitude of their friends towards them. The complicity that currently unites the two junkies was previously shared with a third pal, Matthew, since disappeared. Now that Adam and Paul are all alone, they share everything: anguish and trips, pain and emptiness. Abrahamson's style is less chaotic than Danny Boyle's in Trainspotting, but it seems to share the same fascinating mix of tragedy and surrealism, whereas the scripted written by Mark O'Halloran - who is also one of the main actors with Tom Murphy – has some anthological moments, like the dialogue between the two antiheroes and the Bulgarian immigrant.

Produced by Jonny Speers (Speers Films), the film received the prize for best director in the Irish Film & TV Awards 2004, and also the award for best film and critic's prize in the International Film Festival of Sophia. International Sales are managed by Moviehouse Entertainment.