The latest from Paul Schrader is an interesting, bizarre, and effective character study that fails to work as a whole or find a concise voice as a film.
Adam (Jeff Goldblum) is a Holocaust survivor that is spending time in and out of a rehabilitation center in the Israeli desert, functioning high above everyone else, but finds himself back inside after constant relapses in his attempts to re-join the world. Adam is an incredible character full of life and fun on the outside, projecting his need to entertain from his days as Germany’s greatest clown, to the torment and shame he feels over the way things happened in his concentration camp. Many of his issues are directly rooted to the man in charge of the camp, and a man who’s life Adam saved using his “talents” at a show, Commandant Klein (Willem Dafoe). Klein made him his “pet” and Adam’s experiences with him are something he must not only get over, but will also allow him to help another. [Read more...]