Romantic comedies are a genre I generally avoid, but the Sundance Film Festival buzz about director Max Mayer's Adam was too compelling to ignore, and Fox Searchlight's track record of picking winners (like Slumdog Millionaire) intrigued and had made it possible to check out an early screening in Phoenix. Despite its simple formulaic "boy meets girl" construction, Adam develops into a uniquely sweet and remarkably authentic relationship study.

The film's sweetness is foretold in the heroine's opening off-screen allusions to The Little Prince. An aspiring writer of children's books, Beth (Rose Byrne) teaches kindergarten and has just moved into a new Manhattan apartment to be close to work and to escape a busted relationship where she meets Adam (Hugh Dancy)—an awkward geek to whom she is immediately attracted.

Recently losing his father, Adam lives alone and maintains a strictly daily regimen—working independently at a toy manufacturer and returning home to dine on microwavable macaroni & cheese. Equally attracted to Beth but unable to relax like “normal” people, Adam wows her with a spectacular home-made planetarium inside his apartment, but the relationship has numerous bumps in the road ahead—the largest being Asperger Syndrome (ASD).

A form of autism, ASD people typically show extreme awkwardness in social interaction and repeat behaviors in order to function. Adam happens to be most comfortable with his head in the stars and all the physics and astronomy connected with them, yet he opens his world to Beth. Likewise, she learns all she can about ASD, enters Adam's world, and strives mightily to cope with his lifestyle—among his obsessions, a strict adherence to telling the truth at all times. As it turns out, Beth has her own personal issues with men that stem from her father (Peter Gallagher).

The acting is top notch. Both lead characters come across authentically and are remarkably easy to like. Not an easy trick for Hugh Dancy, whose emotionally impaired Adam must display range despite restraining it from showing humor and natural human emotion. When he delivers the Forrest Gump line after Beth's apologetic chocolate offering, we are with Beth in trying to discern if Adam intentionally is joking. At that moment illustrates the overall charm and depth of the understated film. Adam strikes at the heart in a most profound way—on the surface a very simple, straightforward narrative, yet the extremes of Adam's ASD simultaneously serve as metaphor for the inevitable obstacles that lie ahead for any two people who venture into a relationship.