| Adam & Paul | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Lenny Abrahamson |
| Written by | Mark O'Halloran |
| Produced by | Jonny Speers |
| Starring | Tom Murphy Mark O'Halloran |
| Distributed by | Element Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 85 minutes |
| Country | Ireland |
| Language | English |
Adam & Paul is a 2004 Irish buddy comedy drama film directed by Lenny Abrahamson and starring Tom Murphy and Mark O'Halloran. It follows a day in the life of two Dublin drug addicts, Adam and Paul, as they wander around Dublin trying to score heroin.
Adam and Paul are childhood friends from Dublin who as adults have become heroin addicts, tied together by habit and necessity. The film is a stylised, downbeat comedy, following the pair through a single day, which, like every other, is devoted to scrounging and robbing money to buy heroin.
Adam and Paul wake up sick in the middle of a field with Adam glued to a mattress. They make their way into town via a run-in with a belligerent drug dealer named Martin living in Ballymun, a hasty exit from the top deck of a bus, a long trudge down the median of a dual carriageway, and an incident with a moped that injures Paul's leg. Wandering through St Stephen's Green they meet a group of their old friends who are drinking alcohol and having "a little picnic for the kiddies". Unwelcome, the boys sit down despite a torrent of abuse from Marian and Orla who are furious with them for not turning up that morning to the month's mind of Matthew, the boys' best friend and Orla's brother. Marian, backed by her brother Wayne, warns them to stay away from his sister, Janine. To the disgust of Wayne and the girls, Georgie lets slip that there was to be a "do" on for Matthew that night in the Bunker pub.
From there the film follow the pair as they aimlessly wander around the city looking for an unknown person — perhaps a contact that might be able to sort them out with a fix. They have a misunderstanding with a homeless man in a sleeping bag who thinks they're looking for a local troublemaker under the alias of "Clank" who he mistakenly gathers owes them money. Paul hurts his hand in a botched attempt at a smash and grab; they get kicked out of a café for trying to steal a handbag, and Paul gets banned from a shop. After an argument with a Bulgarian immigrant, and failing to get anywhere in their search for drugs, they make their way to Janine's. She is not home but the door is left open. The boys are just about to steal her television, when they hear the sound of a baby crying. Janine returns home to find the two gently holding and whispering to the baby. They leave Janine with the promise that they will see her again that night at the Bunker.
The pair mug an adolescent with Down syndrome, but find he has neither cash nor valuables. Later, a furious man violently confronts them, accusing them of spreading rumours that he owes them money. He identifies himself as Clank. Clank and his friend Zippy kidnap the two and force them to keep a lookout for trouble while they "cause a bit of mayhem" in a nearby garage with baseball bats. Adam and Paul fail to notice the arrival of police, and both Clank and Zippy are arrested.
They decide to take Clank's car to a fence, but crash in the process. Sitting on an old cooker down a back lane, they come across a large television set. With the help of a fence named Kittser, they take the TV to Ballymun and attempt to sell it to an older man. But Kittser and the buyer argue and the TV gets damaged in the altercation, forcing a demoralised Adam and Paul to leave. On their way out, they pass the door of drug dealer Martin who is being attacked by a gang of vigilantes. As the two sit outside the block, the contents of Martin's flat are thrown off of his tower block and land on the ground around the boys including two bags of heroin.
After spending the night in the centre of Dublin intoxicated on their find, Paul wakes up the next morning on Dublin Bay. Adam, who is lying behind him, has overdosed and died. Paul, visibly distraught and conflicted, resigns to taking the two bags of heroin from Adam's pockets and leaving.
Adam & Paul received positive reviews from The Telegraph, The Times, and other UK publications. [1]
Time Out gave the film 5/5, calling it "Mordantly funny and unexpectedly poignant". [2]
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film 3 out of 5 stars. [3]
Leslie Felperin of the Radio Times gives the film 3 out of 5, calling it a "downbeat comedy or slapstick tragedy, depending on which way you look at it". [4]
Total Film gives the film a score of 2 out of 5, describing the film as grim and saying only masochists need apply. [5]
Many critics have pointed out the similarities between Adam & Paul and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot . [6] Barry Monahan suggests that this is particularly evident in their interactions with the Bulgarian man. He further contends that though exterior spaces are framed as an unheimlich "inversion of the homely", interior spaces are even more inhospitable, framing Adam and Paul as outcasts in their society. [7]
Adam & Paul won the Best Director Award, as well as being nominated in 8 categories at the 2nd Irish Film & Television Awards. These include Best Irish Film, Best Script, Best Actor and Best Music. [8]
At the 2005 Berlin Film Festival, Adam & Paul played as part of the official program of the Panorama section.[ citation needed ]
Ballymun is an outer suburb of Dublin, Ireland, at the northern edge of the Northside, the green-field development of which began in the 1960s to accommodate a housing crisis in inner city areas of Dublin. While the newly built housing was state-of-the-art at the time, comprising high-rise tower blocks and flat complexes, residents were moved in years before shops, schools and other infrastructure were fully ready, and the area became well known for both a strong community spirit and considerable social challenges. Ballymun has several sub-districts such as Sillogue, Coultry, Shangan and Poppintree, and is close to both the Republic of Ireland's only IKEA store and to Dublin Airport. The area is the source of one Dublin river, and parts lie in the floodplain of another, and there are a number of parks.
The Ballymun Flats referred to a number of flats—including the seven Ballymun tower blocks—in Ballymun, Dublin, Ireland. Built rapidly in the 1960s, there were 36 blocks in total, consisting of 7 fifteen-storey, 19 eight-storey, and 10 four-storey blocks. The complex was built in a Corbusian style known as towers in the park, which was popular in European and American cities in the mid-20th century.
"Running to Stand Still" is a song by rock band U2, and it is the fifth track from their 1987 album, The Joshua Tree. A slow ballad based on piano and guitar, it describes a heroin-addicted couple living in Dublin's Ballymun flats; the towers have since become associated with the song. Though a lot of time was dedicated to the lyrics, the music was improvised with co-producer Daniel Lanois during a recording session for the album.
The Irish film industry has grown somewhat in recent years thanks partly to the promotion of the sector by Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland and the introduction of heavy tax breaks. According to the Irish Audiovisual Content Production Sector Review carried out by the Irish Film Board and PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2008 this sector, has gone from 1,000 people employed six or seven years ago, to well over 6,000 people in that sector now and is valued at over €557.3 million and represents 0.3% of GDP. Most films are produced in English as Ireland is largely Anglophone, though some productions are made in Irish either wholly or partially.
Prosperity is a series of four one-hour dramas for television from director Lenny Abrahamson and writer Mark O'Halloran. Prosperity features "four powerful, moving and funny stories set on the same day, with each episode examining the life of a single character." The series first aired on 3 September 2007 on RTÉ, and was produced by Ed Guiney and Catherine Magee for Element Films.
Garage is a 2007 Irish film directed by Lenny Abrahamson and written by Mark O'Halloran, the same team behind Adam & Paul. It stars Pat Shortt, Anne-Marie Duff and Conor J. Ryan. The film tells the story of a lonely petrol station attendant and how he slowly begins to come out of his shell.
Tom Jordan Murphy was an Irish theatre and film actor best known for his 1998 Tony Award winning performance in The Beauty Queen of Leenane.
The 5th Annual Irish Film & Television Awards took place on 17 February 2008 at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, honouring Irish film and television released in 2007.
Love/Hate is an Irish dramatic television series broadcast on RTÉ Television. The show aired between 2010 and 2014 on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player. The show depicts fictional characters in Dublin's criminal underworld.
The 9th Irish Film & Television Awards took place on Saturday 11 February 2012 at the Convention Centre Dublin (CCD), honouring Irish film and television released in 2011.
Leonard Ian Abrahamson is an Irish film and television director. He is best known for directing independent films Adam & Paul (2004), Garage (2007), What Richard Did (2012), Frank (2014), and Room (2015), all of which contributed to Abrahamson's six Irish Film and Television Awards.
What Richard Did is a 2012 Irish drama film directed by Lenny Abrahamson and written by Malcolm Campbell. The film is loosely based on Kevin Power's Bad Day in Blackrock, a 2008 novel inspired by the real-life death of Brian Murphy in 2000. It won the best Irish film of the year award at the 10th Irish Film & Television Awards and was the most commercially successful Irish film of 2012.
The 10th Irish Film & Television Awards took place on Saturday 9 February 2013 at the Convention Centre Dublin (CCD) honouring Irish film and television released in 2012. It was hosted by Irish actor Simon Delaney and attracted an audience of 1.24 million viewers. The Show was broadcast on RTÉ One Television on the night.
The 13th IFTA Film & Drama Awards took place at the Mansion House on 9 April 2016 in Dublin, honouring Irish film and television released in 2015. Deirdre O'Kane hosted the film awards ceremony.
Lynn Ruane is an Irish politician who has served as an independent Senator for the Dublin University constituency in Seanad Éireann since April 2016. She was the President of the Trinity College Dublin Students' Union from 2015 to 2016.
Charlotte Bradley is an Irish stage and film actress.
Normal People is an Irish romantic psychological drama television miniseries produced by Element Pictures for BBC Three and Hulu in association with Screen Ireland. It is based on the 2018 novel of the same name by Sally Rooney. The series follows the relationship between Marianne Sheridan and Connell Waldron, as they navigate adulthood from their final days in secondary school to their undergraduate years in Trinity College. The series was primarily written by Rooney and Alice Birch and directed by Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie Macdonald.
Niamh Algar is an Irish actress. She is known for winning Best Actress in a Leading Role - TV Drama at the 2020 IFTA Film & Drama Awards for her performance in The Virtues. Other roles include MotherFatherSon, Raised by Wolves and Pure. In 2021, she appeared in Wrath of Man and Censor. For her role in Calm with Horses, she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
The 17th Irish Film & Television Academy Awards took place in July 2021. The ceremony honoured Irish films and television drama released between 1 February 2020 and 31 May 2021.
The 19th Irish Film & Television Academy Awards, also called the IFTA Film & Drama Awards 2023 or the 20th Anniversary IFTA Awards, took place on 7 May 2023 and was hosted by Deirdre O'Kane in the new Dublin Royal Convention Centre, situated on Ship Street, close to Dublin Castle. It honoured Irish films and television drama released between 1 January 2022 and 11 March 2023. The nominations were announced on 6 March 2023. RTÉ broadcast the ceremony and highlights from the IFTA Red Carpet; the awards ceremony and back stage were also distributed to over 120 news channels worldwide.
Monahan, Barry (15 March 2006). "Adam and Paul". Estudios Irlandeses. 1: 167–169.
