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Relationships are hard. And most of us have at least one person in our lives who can make a relationship especially difficult, but we do the hard work of making it work anyway because it's a relative, a spouse, a longtime friend—or simply out of unconditional love. Even then, we often need some divine help.

Most of us don't seek out such relationships, especially if there's any inkling that there's going to be a rough road ahead. But that's just what happens in Adam, a warm and wonderful new romantic comedy now playing in limited release.

Rose Byrne as Beth, Hugh Dancy as Adam

The title character, played with remarkable authenticity by Hugh Dancy, is a 30-ish single man with Asperger's syndrome—an autism spectrum disorder that often includes extreme social disabilities. "Aspies" have difficulty looking people in the eye, reading typical social cues, and having normal conversations. Though they are often quite bright, they often have limited interests and "one-track minds." They can also be moody.

It can be very difficult for a "neurotypical" to relate to an Aspie—and vice versa. I should know: I'm the parent of a young adult male with the disability (combined with bipolar disorder!), and life is never easy in our home.

But even without that personal connection, I'm sure I would've found Adam to be one of the better films of the year, in its depiction not only of a person with the disorder, but of someone who chooses to love him anyway. Beth, played wonderfully by Rose Byrne, is Adam's new neighbor who falls for him despite his social quirks.

CT Movies recently sat down with Dancy, Byrne, and writer/director Max Mayer to discuss the film and its meaning for viewers.

Dancy (Confessions of a Shopaholic, Beyond the Gates) says that though he didn't know anything about Asperger's syndrome, he was drawn to the role because the script "was extremely well-written" and after a conversation with Mayer, "who told me more about the condition and what it would entail for me in trying to create that character."

Dancy thrived on the challenge: "The more I learned about Asperger's, the more nervous I was about taking it on. But I knew what I was getting into, I knew the many ways we could mess it up. But Max had done such a good job in allowing for humor in the story without doing at the expense of Adam—or ever suggesting that it was going to be easy."

He says it's the hardest role he's ever played. "It's the furthest distance I've ever had to travel emotionally, in trying to imagine what the character's life is like. Somebody with Asperger's is wired differently. They're constantly having to make up that distance between themselves and other people, to think through that process of, What the hell is going on here? That process never stops for them. I never got to the point where I was comfortable with that, because it's so counterintuitive to me. The qualities you normally emphasize as an actor—communication and empathy and responsiveness—are the exact opposite of what I was given to work with here. So yeah, it was a stretch."

Byrne (Knowing, Marie Antoinette, Troy) was "immediately drawn to the script. The writing was just wonderful. I've played a lot of characters in genre films, but this was an opportunity to try something really different. It was quite liberating."

Mayer got the idea for the story when he listened to a radio show about a man with Asperger's: "He was talking about how the world felt to him, and his challenges. I was really moved by what he had to say, and I don't usually get that moved. I thought, Hmm, I'd better look into this some more. So I started doing some research."

Mayer (left) on the set

Mayer says has wasn't even thinking of making a film at that point, but was "interested in my own response as much as anything: What is this about for me? I think [my interest] has something to do with growing up as an only child and the way I observed the world, and seeing all these other kids who knew who to talk to and what to talk about.

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Adam	Printer view