Written by Andrew Kingston

In the most extreme circumstances of financial instability and alternative methods of securing money, Leonard Abrahamson represents the homeless drug abusers in Adam and Paul. The use of space enforces an idea that those who lack financial stability in this country are those who are left behind. This is a mockery of the domestic space created from the opening scene. We see both protagonists sleeping on an abandoned mattress in a desolated field, their only idea of domestic space being anywhere they can rest their head. As according to Conn Holohan, this space is “far from acting as a space of refuge, the field is another stop on an endless series of displacements for these characters.” There too is a presence of special ambiguity, whereby (apart from shots of monuments such as O’Connell Bridge to establish they are in the city) the characters wander from street corners to lonesome alleyways with no real agenda, they are simply existing in the background of a functioning society. Their journey through unknown territories on a poorly constructed mission to find heroin has an underlying tone of meaningless to this existence. They are the ones who the Irish government has failed the most and are left to merely exist in the hidden corners of the city.

While this may be a bleak, dystopian outlook on the Celtic Tiger era, we are given moments of relief hen we are given license to laugh with lines such as “I’m not wiping me self with a tayto bag”. These moments allow us to relax and enjoy the journey with the characters at times. There are also moments in the film where the characters experience real joy, such as when they meet the baby for the first time, or more evidently the rapid high that is experienced from drugs. I like to think that Abrahamson is enforcing an idea that no matter how difficult life may get, there is always room for moments of joy and laughter. Mark O’Halloran (writer and stars as Adam) once stated that the story was partially inspired by two homeless women fighting over a choc ice and that “there was something incredibly funny and incredibly sad and incredibly moving and incredibly childlike about it” which I think captures the tone of their journey. Paul’s childlike mannerisms and moments of humour for example, give the audience license to laugh and relax, however they have a depressing undertone of sorrow as it outlines his lack of education and also enforces the helplessness of their situation, ultimately moving the audience as they watch these men stroll aimlessly from one place to another.