zetes Review of Adam Resurrected

Adam Resurrected (2008)

A self-serious bore, and another Holocaust film we just didn't need

[4/10 · 22 November 2009]

Jeff Goldblum plays a Jewish clown who survives the Holocaust by pretending to be Nazi officer Willem Dafoe's dog. Sounds like a tasteless, cheesy Italian movie from the '70s, right? Oh, if only. This cringe-worthy material could have been magic, an easy-made cult classic. Unfortunately, Paul Schraeder directs. I'm sure he's directed a few good films. I've seen one or two okay ones. But he's so boring. He's so literal-minded and unambitious. Adam Resurrected is a first rate bore. Goldblum and Dafoe try to make it "fun", but Schraeder's only interested in making a dire Holocaust picture. We just don't need another one of those. For the record, the Holocaust plot line is really only the flashback sequences. The present-day sequences (set in 1960s Tel Aviv) have Goldblum in a mental hospital, complete with the ultra-lame mental hospital clichés (one woman thinks she's holding up the sky from falling - how wonderful!). He is "resurrected" when he finds a young boy who was raised as a dog and he attempts to cure him.