"Asperger!" "Gesundheit!"

Pleasant but minor, “Adam” is one of those movies that treat fairly serious ailments as if they were cute.

The ailment in this case is Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning form of Autism (Autism, you will recall, was little known to the public until the release of “Rainman,” which also made the ailment seem cute, though with more success).

Hugh Dancy stars as Adam, who, as a result of his condition, does not pick up on social cues. He rarely knows what to say, or when to stop talking, and his conversations tend to be exclusively about astronomy, about which he knows a great deal (he is an Asperger’s savant, like Rainman was an autistic savant -- it makes it easier for the audience to like them).

His new neighbor upstairs -- their apartments are huge by Manhattan standards -- is elementary teacher Beth, played by Rose Byrne. Beth finds Adam good looking and sweet and good looking, but a little odd, and she begins to fall for him for no reason we can see except perhaps his good looks.

There is no particular chemistry between the characters, but we are certainly not opposed to their falling in love. Actually, we are more concerned with Beth’s happiness than Adam’s, which is fine, except the movie isn’t called “Beth.”

Also in the cast are familiar faces Mark Linn-Baker (briefly) as an attorney, Amy Irving as Beth’s mother and most notably Peter Gallagher as Beth’s investment-banker father. He is actually the most interesting character throughout most of the film, until the last reel or so, when he starts to act out of character.

Actually, that is when the whole movie gets a little fuzzy, and it never entirely regains its momentum. Writer-director Max Mayer obviously knows where he wants to take the story, he just doesn’t know how to get it there. When lost, he leans heavily on the music, with such lyrics as “When I find you, I’ll find me.” Needless to say, such songs should be leaned on lightly, at best.

People with Asperger’s can fall in a large range of functionality, and Adam is generally on the low end of that. He doesn’t understand irony, he doesn’t understand jokes, and he says things like “I can see that you’re upset, but I don’t know what to do.” On the other hand he does have a friend, a sagacious, older black man played by Frankie Faison. Morgan Freeman must have been busy on a different movie that week.