Max Mayer’s film is a bit like one of those drippy romantic comedies in which lonely, sensitive young men are rescued by beautiful, caring women, but it has an educational twist: its lonely, sensitive young man, the New York-dwelling Adam (Hugh Dancy with an American accent), suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, and his relationship with his new neighbour (Rose Byrne) gives her and us a tutorial on what this condition entails. Where women are concerned, Adam’s problems include an inability to say the romantically right thing in any given context. I’m happy to believe that Mayer has done his homework, and I’ll grant the film an extra smidgen of respect for an ending that isn’t quite as lovey-dovey as it might have been, but it’s still a horribly mushy movie. At least Dancy’s performance doesn’t seem as vain as some other actors’ excursions into mental-health issues: it comes across simply as a bit of bland do-gooding.

12A, 99 mins

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