The Human Story of the Adam Project

That the best sci-fi movies have always rested on how cleverly they navigate complex human emotions, and it is with this frame of reference that Sean Levy tackles his upcoming project, Netflix Adam ProjectStreaming from March 11th.

“It’s a family drama,” he says. “And the film uses the spectacle and science-fiction genre as a vehicle for emotional storytelling.” Starring Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner and Zoe Saldana, it stars Adam Reed, played by Ryan Reynolds, who is racing against time to fix things in the past. There are some moving feelings as he uses time travel to meet his younger self, about the mothers who make endless sacrifices, the nature of grief, and the things we do for love. Huh.

Given the limited reactions to the film so far, Levy says it is now clear to him that it is “the sentiment that has stuck the most”. Incidentally, Sean Levy, 53, was one of Denis Villeneuve’s co-producers. to arrive (2016). Besides being the story of a linguist trying to figure out the language of mysterious aliens, it was ultimately about a single mother making sense of a fractured past involving her daughter. The film was nominated that year for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

“I love stories of redemption,” Levy continues, when I ask him about the nature of the emotions he’s always drawn to. “And I’m very fascinated by the potential for forgiveness — forgiving one’s parents or oneself.”

Walker Scobel as Young Adam and Jennifer Garner as Ellie | photo credit: netflix

on the canvas of childhood

As the film moves beyond the quantum jumping and strange wormholes that helped the characters last for decades, Levy uses the impulsive nature of childhood to investigate a question that probably haunts most of us. Troubles: With the renewed maturity that comes with adulthood, what if we could balance our childhoods anew?

It’s a question that Levy tackles—to varying degrees—humorously, intensely—in most of his works. in netflix strange thingsWhich he executive-produced and directed (two episodes in each season), childhood is a enabler of truth and way to a playground of clumsy affairs.

Sean Levy at the World Premiere | photo credit: netflix

“I have always turned to the nature of identity and experience in childhood,” he explains. “It’s probably because my own Childhood was far from ideal as I feel it should have ended already. I am trying to recapture a certain sense of joy and wonder from many childhoods on screen.”

Levy says that “no one’s history is perfect” and that an important step in growing up is to “accept those past flaws” and even forgive them. It is a pervasive feeling that directs Adam ProjectEspecially through the character of Adam Reed – exhausted, hurt and yet in love.

A sweet nod to nostalgia and old-fashioned filmmaking is something Reynolds has been drawn to as well. They told Hollywood Reporter That the film is “a bit out of date with ’80s wish-fulfillment, implying that something wonderful or supernatural happens to a child, but he comes home for dinner, and has no clue of his parents. No. It’s an old-fashioned, vibrant and nostalgic filmmaking that I love.”

Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo and Walker Scobel in a scene from the film | photo credit: netflix

absolute power and villain

How do you create a villain in a sci-fi movie that ultimately rests on its human themes? The character of Maya Soren, played by Katherine Keener, will do anything to assert her dominance over “time”—a resource of great importance in the film. “His character is an exploration of whether humanity is really capable of being entrusted with absolute power. And the answer, at least in this film, is that No one To be trusted with that degree of power,” Levy says.

Globally debilitating crises – marked by wars, impulsive world leaders and a gradual decline of trust in multilateral institutions – are the common denominator of the failure of absolute power to run through them. “Unfortunately, as we see in our world, people who are entrusted with overwhelming power almost always abuse it. It’s extremely frustrating. But it makes for a very tasty on-screen movie villain, “He sees.

Blake Lively (L) and Ryan Reynolds part ways Adam Project World Premiere | photo credit: netflix

about ukraine

Obviously, the mood at the film’s premiere in the wake of the Russo-Ukraine War was bitter for both Levy and his team. On 26 February, Ryan Reynolds announced that he and his wife Blake Lively would match up to $1 million in donations to help Ukrainian refugees through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In a recent interview DiversityReynolds said that “it is not hard to find overwhelming sympathy for the idea that families large and small, being told that they must flee their homes, have lived their entire lives in a matter of minutes”.

Netflix, for its part, has suspended its service in Russia and also halted production of four upcoming Russian originals. Additionally, it also refused to carry 20 Russian free-to-air promotional channels that had previously been mandated to host under Russian law.

Adam Project Streams March 11 on Netflix.