Winner of 14 different awards, it comes from the gifted Anders Thomas Jensen, who excels in black comedy
Adam's Apples (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:34
Fresh:24
Rotten:10
Average Rating:6.2/10
Consensus: Good and evil collide with interesting results in Adam's Apples, a dark Biblical allegory that’s alternatively funny and shocking.
Synopsis: Sentenced to community service at a small, countryside church, Adam, a middle-aged neo-Nazi, is warmly welcomed by the cheerful vicar, Ivan. Although Adam is crude, full of hostility, and clearly... Sentenced to community service at a small, countryside church, Adam, a middle-aged neo-Nazi, is warmly welcomed by the cheerful vicar, Ivan. Although Adam is crude, full of hostility, and clearly beyond redemption, Ivan encourages him to choose a goal that will occupy his time there. When Adam dismissively replies that he will bake an apple pie, Ivan assigns him the task of nurturing the church's lone apple tree. If by the time this unassuming tree has been attacked by crows, infested with maggots, and struck by lighting, you are not reasonably certain it has become the battleground for a fiercely irreverent struggle between good and evil, then you have not had the pleasure of meeting an Anders Thomas Jensen film. With a supporting bunch of characters that includes an Arab immigrant who routinely robs gas stations and a chubby former tennis pro and sex addict, this glib parable of religion and human nature plays out with wit and sophistication. Into Adam and Ivan (played with deadpan perfection by Ulrich Thomsen and Mads Mikkelsen), Jensen deposits competing philosophies. Ivan, whose absurd philosophical optimism would have Voltaire falling out of his pew, interprets events as the devil testing people. Adam shakes his unflappable faith by suggesting that evil simply doesn't exist. Adam's Apples is a wickedly dark comedy by one of cinema's most exciting directors. Following its hugely successful theatrical release in Denmark in April 2005, Adam's Apples received its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005. Since Cannes, the picture has played at festivals around the world, from Toronto and Sundance to Sydney and Seattle, picking up many awards along the way, including 3 Danish Academy Awards, Best Film and Best Actor honors, and numerous Audience Awards. Adam's Apples will open exclusively at the Clearview Chelsea in New York on March 16, and this will be followed by exclusive engagements in Los Angeles and Boston on April 13th, and San Francisco on May 11th, with additional cities following. -- © Outsider Pictures [More]
Starring: Nicolaj Kaas, Ali Kazim, Paprika Steen, Ulrich Thomsen
Starring: Nicolaj Kaas, Ali Kazim, Paprika Steen, Ulrich Thomsen, Ole Thestrup, Mads Mikkelsen
Director: Anders Thomas Jensen
Director: Anders Thomas Jensen
Producer: Mie Andreasen, Tivi Magnusson
Screenwriter: Anders Thomas Jensen
Composer: Jeppe Kaas
Studio: Outsider Pictures
Reviews for Adam's Apples
The actors play this darkly funny material as if they are in a deadly serious Shakespearean drama, highlighting the situation's many absurdities
This Danish comedy, like most of that country's dramas, is dark, dark, dark. The film's humor offers an odd blend of subversively sly narrative mixed with bursts of sudden, sharp violence and goofy slapstick.
Jensen is an accomplished screenwriter with a knack for developing people amid comic nonsense.
The path that Jensen plots is one full of the improbable and unlikely, but never the impossible.
I just wasn't, it turns out, the ideal audience for man's allegorical way of dealing with the demonic weightiness of the world.
Features some nice humor, dry as an Empire apple left to wither and brown at room temperature, its juice sucked out but still pleasant to the taste.
Director Jensen (who co-scripted After the Wedding) breaks away from Dogme to make a more stylized film, using a controlled surface that disarms us with surreal happenings and well-executed absurdity.
Pushes the boundaries of weirdness, yet manages to be a moving look into faith and redemption.
We have a comedy black enough to make even the most jaded viewer cringe a little.
Adam’s Apples slams together good and evil for maximum black-comedy impact.
Jensen doesn't pretend it's cute and/or harmless -- there's a fascinating ambiguity to the happy fantasy laid over the misery and failure.
Strong direction, solid acting, and a script as crisp and juicy as freshly picked apples. A solid "A" film.
Its screenplay attempts to blend outrageous black humor with biblical allegory in an ultimately unsuccessful fashion.
Some will see this as a movie about how we’re all God’s children. I saw only the misanthropic fulminations of Jensen’s runaway ego.
For most of its length it's wonderfully wicked -- Jensen actually forces us to sympathize with the neo-Nazi's attitude toward the minister -- but the ending unfortunately mitigates the nastiness ...
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