One of the most talked about films these days is ‘The Adam Project’, the second collaboration between the director shawn levy and the actor Ryan Reynolds. Both already worked together in ‘Free Guy’ and will do it again in ‘Deadpool 3’, but now it’s time to focus on the Netflix tape, more specifically on its outcome.
Beware of ‘The Adam Project’ spoilers from here
Levy himself has explained in an interview with ComicBook that among the inspirations for ‘The Adam Project’ is Amblin’s cinema or the first films by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, but on his end he highlighted a specific title:
‘Good Will Hunting’ is one of the 10 favorite movies. The ‘it’s not your fault’ scene is legendary. It’s a scene and a movie that I’ve seen 30 times and we really wanted our movie to culminate in this catharsis where one character is trying to share something emotional with the other, and the other isn’t able to take it in. And as we know in real life, if someone isn’t going to take in the connection, take in the feeling, sometimes you have to pound them with it. So I said, that day I said, ‘Mark (Ruffalo), make Ryan understand. Do it.’ And Ryan resisted, and the more he resisted, Mark went after him and the result is the beautiful and emotional scene with the our movie ends.
The need for a bittersweet ending
In another interview granted to The Wrap, Levy highlighted how much he likes endings that are happy and sad at the same time, also remembering that of ‘Eduardo Scissorhands’, noting that ‘The Adam Project’ “needed” an ending like that. In addition, there he expanded on the last scene they share Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo and the young man Walker Scobell:
These children and this parent need to close the relationship the way many parents and children do, which is nonverbally and through shared activity. Because that’s how life really happens, and it may be a cliché but that doesn’t make it any less true.
Personally, the Netflix movie didn’t drive me too crazy, but its more emotional side works better than its spectacular side, where everything is too generic, what do you think?