Parents' Guide to Adam the First

Frequently feeling a bit shallow or underwritten (and sometimes even exasperating), this drama is nonetheless held together by its undeniable earnestness and poignant lead performance. Adam the First starts well, with a scene of James taking a very young Adam out in the woods for a serious talk, telling him for the first time that he's not their biological child. Adam's life in the woods seems to be setting him up for some fish-out-of-water adventures, since he knows so little about how real life operates, but his first act on the road is to hold up a gun shop, tricking what must be the most clueless gun shop proprietor in history. Adam uses his gun later to hitch a ride, but soon it's mostly forgotten, and the movie asks us to forgive Adam for his violent threats. (Near the final stretch, he commits another baffling, quasi-illegal act, leaving a dead body and not telling anyone about it.)

The movie's vignette-style storytelling makes it relatively clear which Jacobs aren't going to be Adam's father, but as it gets to the end, it springs some exceedingly odd, and not altogether ineffective, scenes as he approaches the final truth. One takes place at a business convention, where suited men are given one minute to "pitch" each other; Adam sits in and uses the time to find which person in the room is his dad. A final scene includes a karaoke performance that's both strange and bittersweet. Adam the First is a peculiar, patchwork movie, but Fegley's touching, nuanced performance—embracing danger as well as sorry—and his interactions with actors as good as Duchovny and Pine add up to an experience that's slightly more thoughtful and touching than it is disappointing.