Credits
Distributed by
Warner Bros. Pictures (France)
Les Films Séville (Canada)
Production companies
Onyx Films
Studio 37
Directed by
Juan Diego Solanas
Written by
Juan Diego Solanas
Produced by
Claude Léger
Dimitri Rassam
Aton Soumache
Jonathan Vanger
Alexis Vonarb
Starring
Jim Sturgess
Kirsten Dunst
Cinematography
Pierre Gill
Edited by
Dominique Fortin
Paul Jutras
Music by
Benoît Charest
Sigur Rós
Details
Adam tells the story of his two-planet home world, unique with “dual gravity”, allowing the two planets to orbit each other in extremely close proximity. Three immutable laws of gravity exist for this two-planet system: All matter is only pulled by the gravity of the world that it comes from.
An object’s weight can be offset using matter from the opposite world (inverse matter).
After a few hours of contact, matter in contact with inverse matter burns.
The two societies are segregated by law. While the upper world (Up Top) is rich and prosperous, the lower (Down Below) is poor. Up Top buys cheap oil from Down Below and sells electricity back to Down Below at higher prices. Contact of Down Below people with Up Top ones is strictly forbidden, punishable by incarceration or death. People from Up Top regularly go Down Below to experience novelties like dancing on ceilings. The only official physical connection linking the two worlds is “Trans-world” company headquarters. Adam lives in an orphanage in Down, with his only living relative being his great-aunt, who he visits every week. Her secret flying pancakes recipe uses pollen from pink bees which gather pollen from both worlds. The recipe has passed through generations and will be inherited by Adam. As a child, Adam secretly climbs a mountain that reaches very close to Up. There he meets Eden, a girl from Up and they develop a relationship. Meeting on the mountains, Adam uses a rope to pull Eden towards Down, and they head to the woods for a stroll. Discovered, Adam frantically releases Eden back to her world, catching a bullet in his arm and dropping her. Helpless, he watches Eden lying motionless on the ground as blood oozes from her head. When he returns home, his aunt Becky is arrested and her home burned. Ten years later, Adam is developing an anti-gravity product which allows matter to respond to both gravitational fields at once, a cosmetic product for face-lifts. When he sees Eden on TV, he realises she is alive and working at Trans-world. Completing his formula and hired by Trans-world to develop the cream, Adam’s plan is to find Eden in Trans-world. He becomes friends with Bob, a Trans-world employee from Up. Adam helps him obtain rare stamps from Down and Bob helps him contact Eden. Bob gives Adam material to disguise himself as a worker from Up. Eden does not recognise him because of amnesia from the accident. Adam’s clothes start to burn so he has to return to Down. Later on, Bob is fired but as he leaves, he secretly gives Adam his ID to help him exit the Trans-world building and into Up. Later, calling Eden through Bob’s phone, Adam manages to get a date. Meanwhile, as his cosmetic cream is very important for the company, Adam presents it in the lecture hall. When Eden enters and discovers his true identity, she flees. Adam runs to find her but Bob’s ID, having been fired, lands him in trouble. He escapes to Bob’s and he shows him that mixing liquids from both gravity fields can make a hybrid solution that resists both fields and simply floats between the two. Adam then reveals that he didn’t give Trans-world the main secret ingredient of his compound, leaving the company unable to manufacture the product without him. With Bob’s help, he goes back to the Dos Mundos restaurant where he had met with Eden and finds out she has begun to remember him. But the police arrive and he has to run. Upon returning to his planet, he goes to the mountain top where they had met, and she comes to meet him again as they had long ago. The police arrest Eden while Adam falls the remaining distance between worlds, surviving thanks to his inverse matter vest. Trans-world agrees to drop the charges against Eden if Adam gives them his formula and never contacts her again. Adam returns to his old life, believing he will never see her again. But Eden goes to Bob for help. He finds Adam and shows him he can stay Down without the help of the opposite-matter accoutrements, using Adam’s methods to negate the effect of gravity. Bob tells him he had purchased the beauty cream patent under Albert compagny name before Trans-world. Then tells Adam he has a “date”. The film ends with Eden revealing she has become pregnant with twins, and the camera zooms far out to reveal towering skyscrapers on both sides, showing that the anti-gravity formula allowed the Down world to become prosperous, as well as children from both sides interacting through basketball.