Adulthood – Review

Ah Adulthood, when children have finally grown to full adults, and have families and lives of their own, while their parents age and enjoy retirement. For siblings Noah Robles (Gad) and his sister Meg Robles-Vargas (Scodelario), their dad has passed away, and their mother Judy (Omholt) has had a stroke and needs a full-time caretaker, Grace Briscoe (Lourd).

Judy appears to not be thrilled at the film’s outset, listening to Grace natter on and on, and eventually crashes to the floor after reaching up to fix a clown statue on the shelf. The doctors say this is worse than last time and that her speech is likely not coming back. This is another stroke, and will not be easy to deal with for the siblings. Meg’s husband Diego (Londoño) seems less than sympathetic about things, and takes the family’s two children home from the hospital so the boys don’t get scared.

So, time to get silly with the plot. Noah and Meg are in the basement, which unfortunately has sprung a bit of a leak from a pipe and flooded old items, such as Pokémon cards and original Frank Miller comics. Shiiiit! Those are worth thousands!! Even worse, Meg picks at the crumbling wall, and reveals… a corpse!!! Double shiiiit.

Adulthood is a fairly interesting dark comedy mystery about dead bodies, family secrets, sibling bonds, snoopy cops and blackmailing parties. It is both serious and not, but is mostly filled with jokes. The plot is good enough even if the setup is only somewhat capitalized on, but it’s a fairly entertaining time overall even if a few plot turns are expected. The cast plays it straight with some dark humor sliced in along some snarky lines. Some will vibe with the humor more than I did, and some will probably hate the main characters. I was a bit in the middle but had a good enough time with it, despite wanting the story to go even further in a few ways.

The director and Wyld Stallyn Alex Winter also shows up in a bit role. Whoa.