Summaries

Synopsis

In this adaptation of the Robert Cormier's novel, 14-year-0ld Adam Farmer seeks to unearth the many secrets locked in his subconscious. Adam's journey through his mind is paralleled with a bike trip to Rutterburg, Vermont, with a package for his father. As he travels through several small towns, he starts to remember past events from his life.

Adam's trip is prompted by a call from his girlfriend, who says her father met a reporter from the Adam's alleged hometown of Rawlings, Pennsylvania, and the reporter had never heard of anyone named Farmer living there. Suspicious, Adam beings spying on his parents and finds two birth certificates with his name on them, but with different birthdates - Feb. 14 (Valentine's Day) and July 14 (Bastille Day). Adam confronts his father, who admits some shocking truths.

Spoiler text

Adam's real name is Paul Delmonte and the family was forced to relocate in a Witness Protection-type program after his father testified in state and federal trials against corrupt government officials. In reality, Adam is not biking to Vermont; he is riding in circles around psychiatric facility where he has been held for the past three years, and the people he meets along the way are patients and workers at the facility. His "journey" is a quest to discover the whereabouts of his parents, who mysteriously disappeared (in truth, they were "terminated" by the adversaries they sought to elude). The memories Adam recounts are documented in "psychiatric sessions," which are, in fact, interviews to determine whether or not he knows more about his father's involvement with the government than he's telling. Adam's final interview ends with two possible outcomes, neither of which bode well for the boy: "Terminating" him or questioning him until he dies.