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Adam Resurrected (2008)

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Average Rating: 5.1/10
Reviews Counted: 38
Fresh: 13 | Rotten: 25

Such an unusual tale might have made for a compelling drama, but Adam Resurrected suffers from narrative confusion and an emotional detachment at its core.

Average Rating: 5.8/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 3 | Rotten: 3

Such an unusual tale might have made for a compelling drama, but Adam Resurrected suffers from narrative confusion and an emotional detachment at its core.

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Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 745

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Movie Info

Author Yoram Kaniuk's celebrated 1971 novel concerning a charismatic yet questionably sane Holocaust survivor comes to the screen in this dark drama starring Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, and Derek Jacobi. In the years before World War II, Adam Stein (Goldblum) was a Berlin entertainer who thrilled audiences with extravagant circus acts and spectacular magic tricks. Later, when Hitler took power and Europe was plunged into chaos, Stein and his family were locked away in a concentration camp

R, 1 hr. 47 min.

Drama

Directed By: Paul Schrader

In Theaters: Dec 12, 2008 Wide

On DVD: Sep 22, 2009

Bleiberg Entertainment

In a less competitive year, Jeff Goldblum would have had a shot at an Oscar nod.

December 19, 2008 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times

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Gary Goldstein

Los Angeles Times

Top Critic

A semi-unbearable attempt at profundity set in a mental institution 15 years after WWII.

December 12, 2008 Full Review Source: New York Post

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Kyle Smith

New York Post

Top Critic

Savage gallows humor might have substituted for pathos. But Adam Resurrected feels so detached that there is not a laugh, nor even a wicked smirk of nihilistic glee, to be gleaned.

December 12, 2008 Full Review Source: New York Times

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Stephen Holden

New York Times

Top Critic

The director, Paul Schrader, tries for cleansing audacity, but ends up too close to farce.

December 10, 2008 Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly

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Owen Gleiberman

Entertainment Weekly

Top Critic

I can tentatively recommend it if only because there has never been anything like it in the history of cinema as far as I can remember.

December 10, 2008 Full Review Source: New York Observer

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Andrew Sarris

New York Observer

Top Critic

You've got to hand it to Schrader: He pulls off enough of this impressionistic comedy to provoke passions and arguments anew about a topic that seems done to death.

September 9, 2008 Comment

Kirk Honeycutt

Hollywood Reporter

Top Critic

Director Paul Schrader is too removed from the powerful emotions roiling through the film, but it may be the only way to handle the horrors he's forced to confront.

September 21, 2009 Full Review Source: Seanax.com

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Sean Axmaker

Seanax.com

The ending throws away the complexity that makes the rest of the movie so interesting

April 21, 2009 Full Review Source: Movie Habit

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Marty Mapes

Movie Habit

A well-acted, sporadically intriguing drama that has a few poignant moments...but its convoluted, unfocused plot fails to pack an emotional wallop as a whole.

January 31, 2009 Full Review Source: NYC Movie Guru

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Avi Offer

NYC Movie Guru

Goldblum gives a powerful performance in this film. His is one of the best performances by any actor in any film released in 2008.

January 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Laramie Movie Scope

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Robert Roten

Laramie Movie Scope

Inexplicable, eclectic and esoteric, it's a sardonic turn-off to a mainstream audience.

January 6, 2009 Full Review | Comment

Susan Granger

SSG Syndicate

Grapples with important themes and is expertly made, but is simply too odd and off-putting to be anything more than an almost grotesque curiosity.

January 5, 2009 Full Review Source: One Guy's Opinion

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Frank Swietek

One Guy's Opinion

For all the nightmarish scenes conceived as a creepy cross between Burroughs and Weisel, we don't receive the cathartic satisfaction typically related to the dramatization of Jewish tragedy.

December 22, 2008 Full Review Source: Bangitout.com

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Jordan Hiller

Bangitout.com

It seems to have been written in a tone of magical realism, but the director is Paul Schrader, a filmmaker who has many talents, but no feel for whimsy, let alone magic.

December 19, 2008 Comment

Andy Klein

Los Angeles CityBeat Source: Los Angeles CityBeat

The conclusion of the film conveys a sense of moderate relief over life-altering transformation, shortchanging the miracle Goldblum is working overtime to achieve.

December 18, 2008 Full Review Source: BrianOrndorf.com

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Brian Orndorf

BrianOrndorf.com

One cannot recommend this film strongly enough.

December 18, 2008 Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly

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F.X. Feeney

L.A. Weekly

Could have been a tour de force for director Paul Schrader and his cast, and the glimpses of greatness make the reality all the more disappointing.

December 16, 2008 Full Review Source: Christianity Today

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Alissa Wilkinson

Christianity Today Source: Christianity Today

This is a really off-the-wall nihilistic fantasy that may please a small segment of the audience and perhaps even become a cult film.

December 16, 2008 Full Review | Comment

Mark R. Leeper

rec.arts.movies.reviews

A film of insanity, cruelty and living life when the thrill is gone, "Adam Resurrected" tells a powerful story---for viewers tough enough to take it. One of Jeff Goldblum's best performances and stand-up supporting work by Willem Dafoe.

December 16, 2008 Full Review Source: Monsters and Critics

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Ron Wilkinson

Monsters and Critics

Even when it flies off the rails deep into its third act, Resurrected remains strangely hypnotic.

December 11, 2008 Full Review Source: AV Club

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Nathan Rabin

AV Club

Between Jeff Goldblum's wildly over-mannered performance and the schlocky treatment of serious subject matter, it's hard to know whether to simply dismiss the film or be outraged by it.

December 11, 2008 Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com

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Chris Barsanti

Filmcritic.com

This is the rare film that is memorable, affecting, and bad.

December 11, 2008 Full Review Source: I.E. Weekly

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Amy Nicholson

I.E. Weekly

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Audience Reviews for Adam Resurrected

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Probably intended as a brave attempt of countering the horrors of WW2 concentration camps with black humor, this does simply not work on any level. The scenes set in a 1960s sanatorium where the Jewish victims have to cope with their past feel arbitrary, random and leave you entirely confused and uninterested about any

December 22, 2011

Jens S.

Super Reviewer

"Adam Resurrected" starts in Tel Aviv in 1961 where the men in the white suits with butterfly nets come to take Adam Stein(Jeff Goldblum) away to the Seizling Institute, a rehab facility for Holocaust survivors, after he tries to strangle his landlady(Juliane Kohler). While some may have doubts about whether or not he

August 19, 2010