Babak Anvari | What's Up with Adam? / 2005

a moment of wonderment, a kiss, and a dance

by Douglas Messerli

 

Håvard Rydning (screenplay), Babak Anvari (director) What's Up with Adam? / 2005 [24 minutes]

 

Adam (Paul Stocker) is dumped of with his numerous bags and suitcases in the local parking lot of the university he is attending, almost dismissed by his arguing parents who drive off with hardly a word of good wishes. They wave him off mid-argument.

    But he quickly finds a friend in the helpful fellow student, obviously his senior, who helps him with his bags and suggests next time he go the back entrance which is not so difficult to navigate.

    He meets up with the friendly guy, Toby (Jason Ebelthite), who first appears to be a kind of jock who’s dating Beth (Henriette Faye-Schjøll), both of whom are also in his French class.

     But Adam also does seem to have a friend from his old high school days, Janet (Sheena Irving), who seems more interested in dating and the upcoming ball than any academic achievement. She suddenly becomes determined to find someone whom Adam might date for the college ball, which seems to be, at least for her, the big event of the year.

     When the early exams for the French class are reported, Adam does quite nicely, while he discovers that Toby has failed it and can’t afford to fail the final exams which he feels are coming up far too soon.

     This film from 2005 is a rather old-fashioned gay film when boys actually fall in love. So it is no surprise that we soon get the set up. After one of the classes, we see Adam sitting with the handsome Toby attempting to explain some of the French lessons that they have been taught.

      Toby’s response—"it sounds so easy when you explain it!”—results in the obvious next step, Toby asking if the academic-minded Adam can give him some help, with the form of lessons, so that he might possibly pass the final exam.

      Adam sees it as utterly no problem, and the boys begin to study closely together.

     But meanwhile, Janet is the kind of girl who plows through her friendships without even bothering to ask whether what she’s doing is helpful or annoying. She reminds me more of the kind of marriage-determined woman who I experienced in the 1960s who were so centered upon their own and their friend’s martial futures that they literally pushed and pulled the shy boys into female relationships that the boy’s themselves may not have truly wanted. She is convinced, in this case, that her friend Beth truly likes Adam and that they would make a perfect couple, plotting a meetup for the two at a local bar.

     Meanwhile, Toby and Adam meet up in Adam’s dorm room to study, Adam making quite sure that it focuses on the academic studies.

     His first meeting with Beth does not go well. He’s clear he’s not interested. But she, being another formidable female of this not so after-all liberated school, knowing that he’s helping Toby with lessons, wonders, if he has enough time, might he not like to meet with her for help in French as well.

     At this point, even the passive Adam expresses the fact that he really doesn’t have that kind of time.

     Her answer, as she takes his hand literally shaking upon his knee, is “yeh, perhaps some other time.” But she knows just how to handle shy boys who are simply afraid of getting involved with girls, asking him if he’s going to the ball. At that very moment, however, Toby shows up, further complicating the confusing feelings that Adam is having. He immediately asks Toby to sit down, a smile returning to his face.

     Toby is slowly learning but doesn’t quite get the meaning of what he’s reading, wondering what the machine they keep talking about regarding the deus ex machina, with Adam explaining that it is Latin, Greek actually about the sudden end of theatrical events in which the gods appeared ending the plays with “the voice of god.” But we now see that Toby is not stupid. He suggests that basically it is a crappy out when they can’t come up with a proper ending like Superman 3; Adam has to agree. And finally, we get a laugh out of Adam.

    In the very next scene, they finally meet out of doors, Adam suggesting he’s doing really well. The are now sitting, and Adam positing that if he keeps up with his reading and grammar—Toby interrupting him to say, “You think of that all the time, don’t you?”

     Suddenly Toby introduces a new subject: “It’s changing, the sunset in the sky. It’s big.”

   Adam admits “big” is too small a word to describe it, Toby showing that he too has a secret profundity: “Infinite,” a word choice that even makes Adam turn to him in respect. The scene is a kind of secret moment between the two when Toby has finally brought all of Adam’s learning to a moment of silence. If for nothing else, this and a couple of other scenes make this work a true joy to watch.

     Exam day, a 2-hour test, has finally arrived. Adam signs Toby good luck.

     A short while later, Adam is in bed sleeping when he hears a knock at his dorm window. It is Toby to tell him that he has passed the French exam, but as he leans forward in the window, their faces moving closer and closer together, either he kisses Adam or Adam kisses him. Surely for Adam it is the first time that he has ever paused in his studies to perceive that he might be gay and in love with Toby. British director Anvari does not present it as a sudden realization, but in that beautiful moment of intimacy, we know everything has changed between the two of them, and that Adam has been transformed. This is what is up with Adam.

   But his indefatigable female friends move forward with forcing him to date Beth for the school dance, as suddenly, seeing Adam continually with Beth and Janet, Toby moodily backs off. Adam sees it to his distress, but his attempts at being a nice boy get in the way of telling his two female friends to simply back off, Beth and Janet managing to get him drunk with Beth dragging him home. She sleeps the night on in the couch, despite his memories of vomiting and discomfort, bragging to others that she had sexual intercourse with him, which he cannot even remember.

     And just as suddenly he finds himself at the school ball, a moody Toby in the background, while Beth pulls him, quite unwillingly on the dance floor. The discomfort of their dance is apparent, but Beth refuses to even accept it when the unsmiling Adam will barely move his body across the room. She pushes forward to kiss him.

  Fortunately, it the films own version of a deus ex machina, a fire alarm suddenly goes off, and everyone is forced momentarily outside, where once again, Adam spots Toby in the distance.

     But even then these British monsters insist they go back in, but this for the first time in his life, Adam, apologizing of course, refuses to join them. They are shocked but return inside nonetheless without any comprehension.

     Adam rushes to the side of Toby. He begs a drag of Toby’s cigarette, perhaps his first time ever, trying to understand why anyone attends such events.

      Toby, now somewhat frustrated, suggests that perhaps people go there to dance.

      Adam: “You like dancing?”

      Toby: “No.”

      Suddenly Adam holds out his hand, encouraging Toby with the word: “Come.”

      “Are you serious?”

     And there outside the school ball for anyone to see, the two boys begin to dance, actually truly enjoying the process for the first time of their lives, a bit clumsy but still serious, not quick moves, but the old kind of dancing which I used to do in the 1950s and 60s at high school dance afternoons. These boys enjoy the moment of actually being able to put their hands upon one another and move, perhaps what dance is truly about.

      This movie is, by most standards, retardé, cheaply made, with no truly profound dialogue; but I found it one of the most delicious film moments I have experienced in a long while. Here is an old fashioned love story that for both its male characters has taken a long while to get to. But as for so many of us in college who remember just such moments, suddenly the world cracked open and life changed forever.

 

Los Angeles, August 29, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2026).