Hmm…a new Paul Schrader film

Adam Resurrected, an adaptation with a rather interesting synopsis, is in very limited release of one theater for Oscar qualifying run right now (wider release around March or so).

Directed by Paul Schrader (AFFLICTION, AUTO FOCUS), this film has been called Israel’s “Catch 22” for its dark comedy and fierce intensity. The main character, Adam Stein (JEFF GOLDBLUM), once a popular German cabaret star is now, in the early 1960s, living in a different kind of three-ring circus: an experimental mental institution in the Negev Desert in Israel. Brilliant, manipulative, exquisitely talented and exuberantly free-spirited, Adam outsmarts his doctor (DEREK JACOBI), arouses his fellow patients, philanders with the institution’s ravishing nurse (AYELT ZURER) and resists all attempts at a cure. But when Adam meets a strange boy who believes he’s a dog, he thinks back to his nightmare years in a German prison camp run by a sadistic Nazi commandant (WILLEM DAFOE). Can this boy help Adam regain his humanity? That’s the question.

The producers (who also brought us the quirky The Band’s Visit) are trying to astroturf an Oscar nod for Goldblum.

It’s current hovering at 33% on RT, but I can’t help but be interested.

I saw this at the Toronto Film fest and I’d say those reviews are pretty accurate. Goldblum is really fascinating to watch in it (he hasn’t been this compelling in years) and the film is very unique in its tone and subject matter. But, I don’t know, it gets a little too bizarre as it goes along and I don’t think it entirely works.