It takes some work to make anyone feel sorry for junkies but 'Adam and Paul' is a film that succeeds beyond any expectation. Yes, it shows the appalling lives of two junkies who have clearly been 'down so long' they have pretty much lost contact with reality, but it also makes you laugh, for even in their lives there is sometimes something amusing.

It's grim and the words 'with hilarious consequences' are not going to appear in my review, but the film does show there is still some humanity in them, particularly in the scenes with their pal. Yes, their condition makes them dislikeable people who are always on the look out for money to steal and people to scam from, but we are asked to appreciate that there is a glimmer of hope: no matter how dim.

A must see film, but make sure you're in an optimistic frame of mind before you go in, because 'Adam and Paul' will take its toll on the sunniest disposition.

Funny, bleak, sad, absurdist look at a day in the life two Dublin heroin addicts.

It's more 'Waiting for Godot' than 'Trainspotting'. Two wonderful lead performances by Tom Murphy and Mark O'Halloran as a sort of dark, drug addled Laurel and Hardy.

It's terrifically shot, with wonderful wide angle images of our two anti-heroes tramping through the urban jungle.

The ending wasn't quite as powerful for me as I think it was meant to be, and a few twists felt a bit forced.

But weeks after seeing it, images and moments stick in my mind. Always the sign of a good film.

Great to see that director Lenny Abrahamson continued to grow and make very strong films after this, including "What Richard Did", "Frank" and the Oscar nominated "Room", the last two finally garnering him some well deserved recognition beyond his homeland.

This is a beautiful film made in Dublin which I have just seen in Tel Aviv at the Israel Irish film festival, in the presence of the director. At first I did not think I would enjoy it, it is, after all not an endearing subject but the longer it went into its 83 minutes, the more I enjoyed it. This is the story of two homeless heroin addicts called Adam and Paul but which is Adam, which is Paul, you never find out. Similar to "Waiting for Godot" but filmed in a great number of locations rather than a single room. Although its a sombre subject, you follow a single day in their lives (and the death of one from an overdose) but the film is much filled with humor in a style reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy. The dialog is simple, in very short sentences, which is accurate of these folk, and there is, I warn you, much use of the word f**k which gives the Hebrew subtitlers a lot of grief. All the characters are believable and are based on the lives of real Dubliners. The script was written by the taller addict. How do they eat, how do they go to the bathroom, how do they survive? You follow their lives and ultimately you yearn for one of their scams to survive in order that they "earn" some money but then you realize that it would not be spent on food but drugs. They meet a varied collection of other losers on their travels and I could add a spoiler by revealing the funniest one-liner in the film - when they meet a man they think comes from Romania - but I won't. Another funny sequence is outside a gas station where they are supposedly watching for the police during an attack on the station by two men with baseball bats, pure L & H. The photography is superb, stark, revealing of slums, the direction brilliant. The director was forced to take jobs making commercials to earn a living whilst making the film. As to which one is which, the director confirmed that they were interchangeable and, probably, a single entity. This is the sort of film most English-speaking film-making countries could not make, they lack the observational powers of this writer and director. If you get the chance to see it, don't miss it. And better in a cinema than on television where it will lose much of its qualities.