The protagonists of Adam & Paul are heroin addicts living on the streets of Dublin. The film opens as they wake up on a mattress in Ballymun, and we follow them on a one day odyssey in search of their next fix. Dublin is an important character, and is presented as a city of two halves. What most would consider to be the “normal” Dublin – shops, cafes, restaurants – becomes foreign when seen from the protagonists’ point of view, as their status as social pariahs makes it impossible for them to interact with the city in the common way. A situation many would consider banal, like buying bread from Spar, becomes next to impossible. The Dublin they inhabit is a seedier one, undoubtedly, but not one that is wholly malignant. They are constantly recognized by their fellow hustlers, who inquire after their wellbeing and warn them of impending danger. Ultimately, it seems that the city rewards Adam and Paul for their inherent good natures; they narrowly escape trouble through sheer coincidence on a few occasions, and at the end of the film a bag of heroin falls in front of them, seemingly from the sky. It’s an ambiguous occurrence, given what follows, but in Adam and Paul’s Dublin, it’s closer to a miracle more than anything.