Adam

‘You’re a liar and I hate you!’ yells Adam (Hugh Dancy) at his neighbour and sort of girlfriend Beth (Rose Byrne). She’s not, really, but then Adam has no sense of scale: Asperger’s makes him relentlessly literal minded. There are no white lies in Adam’s universe, nor any shades of grey. It’s all darkness with the odd pinprick of revelatory light. No wonder he’s keen on outer space.

The actors try hard, but Adam and Beth, as a couple, don’t ring true – she’s more infantalised than he is, which is worrying for a primary school teacher. Daddy pays her rent and babies her, which adds an interesting layer when he’s put on trial for fraud or, as Adam would call it, lying. But it’s not clear why a pretty daddy’s girl would fall for a talkative and lonesome engineer with Asperger’s and a space fixation. It feels dishonest, which is a problem for a film so interested in truthfulness – especially one trying to reconcile that interest with the demands of a Hollywood romcom.