As per usual, I knew nothing about this film going in, but when director Alex Winter’s name rung a bell – or rung a Bill, I should say – and as a fan of his acting since his adventures with Ted, I was eager to see this and low-key delighted to discover that he has a whole slew of independent offerings to check out if this one appeals to me. I wasn’t even aware that he’s been churning out some quality documentaries in the last decade or so, but Adulthood is his first fictional feature in a while.
I also did myself the usual favour of going into this – and every film – blind. Without even so much as a gentle probing of Google, I saw the familiar indie dramedy set-up of adult siblings in their homecoming and supposed that this might be the same old mumblecore reunion or family milestone movie, that at best is a slow burn towards an eventual exposition dump as to why someone is holding that grudge, or estranged from someone else, or didn’t even show up, or showed up unannounced. You know, the standard dance of dysfunctional families we all know and love/hate.
Thankfully, there’s an actual inciting – and exciting – incident beyond their elderly mother falling and landing herself in the hospital, before her children Meg (Kaya Scodelario) and Noah (Josh Gad) rush to her side, albeit reluctantly. Straight out of the gate – and this is not a spoiler, since it’s the logline and summary anywhere a discerning viewer might look – the grown-up kids find a literal skeleton in the closet, or rather in the space between the walls in their childhood home basement. How very Edgar Poe of Mom and Dad, if this were their doing.
Parents aren’t perfect, and one day we come to realize they’re just fellow human beings, but to find out they’re potentially murderers is a whole other can of worms. Maybe I shouldn’t be plugging another film here, but since I’m Canadian and this film is shot in Canada, I feel it’s fair to give a shout-out to a recent Quebecois co-production, The Successor (2023), if you think this exact premise is scandalous, intriguing, relatable (?!?), or just downright delicious, and you want another source of it.
It’s a decent flick for streaming or a family movie night – as long as no one watching has such sordid secrets and no truth-telling ensues – but despite being engaged for the whole runtime, I found the dialogue and script to be just the bare bones of the greater dramedy or word-of-mouth sleeper hit it might have been.
The rise of genetic genealogy in solving cold cases around the world presents ethical challenges for the modern family. You might find out your grandfather’s DNA was once somewhere it shouldn’t have been, and your surname gets dragged through the mud. This could happen to anyone now, with most of the murder and missing person cases over the past century being reopened. This could happen to you real soon, whether you’re ready or not.
With this in mind, I’m not sure that the straight-laced school teacher mom Meg and the gamer stoner ne’er-do-well Noah (oh sorry, I mean, an underemployed writer) needed to go to such absurd lengths just to save face… but that’s exactly what they do here, in an over-the-top way we’d expect from a Guy Ritchie or Coen Brothers thriller, but without any hijacks or hilarity. The escalation in an attempted comedy of errors becomes predictable, however, and I would have appreciated a few more twists and turns beyond the first act’s solid starter.
You can still tune in to see what happens. After all, I couldn’t turn it off, technically.
You also might want to tune in to see some familiar faces going through the paces. Adulthood hosts a handful of competent working actors but none of them can be considered stars or standouts this time around.
Maybe my lukewarm opinion of the performances hinges mainly on my general disapproval of Josh Gad in lead roles, since Scodelario is innocent even if she inhabits this a bland and one-dimensional character. They’ve been trying to push Gad on the general audience like he’s the next Jack Black, but he lacks the charisma and dare I say, the teddy bear lovability of the latter. I’ll forward my unsolicited career advice here, but as someone destined to play this generation’s George Costanza-type supporting roles, he’s incredibly overcast in front-and-centre characters who, quite frankly, exploit the most annoying and grating aspects of what may be his real-life personality. I’ve never seen him in a role where he displays actual depth of emotion or true range, and I have no idea if that’s his fault or the filmmakers’.
I think, in another unsolicited suggestion, that Gad’s typecasting as the annoying, flawed dork should be disrupted by swapping typical roles with the typecast villain, Anthony Carrigan – whose alopecia, which isn’t apparent via the Google thumbnail, has possibly confined him to only baddie roles, as if balding meant instant Bond villain or at least Dr. Evil. Hey, where’s Will when you need a dead serious advocate or a good slap – I mean, show – of support? But seriously, why not give a character actor like Carrigan a shot at a surprising or sensitive character study, while Gad gets a chance to play someone more subversive, or best case scenario, maniacal. There’s your next film, Winter, you’re welcome.
Meanwhile, I came for another Bill, that being Billie Lourd, whose comedic chops aren’t coming out to play at all here, and that’s a tragedy. Actors like Chris Candy (sorry I missed the documentary about his dad, John, at TIFF! I did have a ticket!) and Sean Simms had such potential to have fantastic feature debuts here, but weren’t given any substance in their roles.
Now I don’t know at all about the guy called Nck Name (the rapper name for Nick Londoño?) who’s just this barely-walking barely-talking Ken Doll plug-in husband of Meg, whose character might have made for a better desperate and stressed single mother instead of a yuppie soccer mom, under the circumstances.
Anyway, enough of my armchair casting director comments…
Adulthood is a harmless little indie drama and wannabe thriller that won’t waste much of your adult life, and it piqued my curiosity about Winter’s other directorial works; I’ve since added both his bogus-looking early comedies and highly-rated recent docs to my watchlist of incredible and increasing length, so there’s that.
Adulthood is in select theaters now and digital on September 23rd.
