Montrealer Adam Levy (Jess Aaron Dwyre) has more than your average teenage troubles. His parents were accidentally killed while visiting Israel when he was a small boy, so he has lived with his grandfather, a strict Orthodox rabbi, for the last 10 years. On his way to a clandestine clarinet audition at the university — his grandfather discourages his interest in music and expects him to study law — the polite young man gets improbably swept up in a political protest where he meets Yasmine Gibran (Flavia Bechara), a beautiful literature student from Lebanon. Forbidden love ensues.
We’ve seen this story before, but to the film’s credit — due largely to the likeable principals’ ability to convey a believable blend of tentativeness and sincerity — it isn’t as paint-by-numbers as it sounds. The script resists easy stereotypes by making Yasmine’s family secular Christians — her father’s art gallery is exhibiting controversial female nudes — and works hard to humanize all sides involved. That work is nearly undone by some clumsy magic realism introduced via Mostafa, a mystical African cliché who runs an antiquarian book shop and strives to unite Sufism with Kabala in an effort to heal the world.
Yet, despite the corn, Adam’s Wall hits some fine points on how it’s impossible to escape unresolved conflict, no matter how many miles or years you run, and how ancient traditions only survive through their ability to transform.