No Bandaid Solutions: Wandel’s Suffocating Drama Explores Collective Collateral Damage

Following her remarkable debut Playground (read review), Belgian auteur Laura Wandel moves from a harrowing portrait of schoolyard cruelty to shifting her focus to another intense microcosm in L’intérêt d’Adam (Adam’s Sake). This time, she plunges into the overburdened world of hospital workers, crafting a suffocating, relentless examination of systemic neglect—where solutions exist, yet alternatives are complicated by protocol. Steeped in separation anxiety, the film captures the frantic rhythms of a single working shift through calm, tightly observed cinematography. Léa Drucker and Anamaria Vartolomei deliver seamless performances as two women straining to provide care — with the film being a moving target on who and how that care is offered within a system that does its best at not adding more burden to those who are already victimized.…...