"Adam Resurrected" follows the story of Adam Stein, a charismatic patient at a mental institution for Holocaust survivors in Israel, 1961. He reads minds and confounds his doctors, lead by Nathan Gross. Before the war, in Berlin, Adam was an entertainer--cabaret impresario, circus owner, magician, musician--loved by audiences and Nazis alike until he finds himself in a concentration camp, confronted by Commandant Klein. Adam survives the camp by becoming the Commandant's "dog", entertaining him while his wife and daughter are sent off to die. Years later we find him at the Institute. One day, Adam smells something, hears a sound. "Who brought a dog in here?" he asks Gross. Gross denies there is a dog but Adam finds him--a young boy raised in a basement on a chain. Adam and the boy see and recognize each other as dogs--and their journey begins. "Adam Resurrected" is the story of a man who once was a dog who meets a dog who once was a boy.

The big issue surrounding "Adam Resurrected" isn't so much whether it's been done well, but rather whether it was worth doing at all. Director Paul Schrader and scenarist Noah Stollman have lucidly interpreted the tricky themes of Yoram Kaniuk's novel, and Jeff Goldblum's performance as a brilliant but deranged Holocaust survivor is a genuine tour de force....