Adulthood

Bluesky

Noah (Josh Gad) is not good at adulting. During his several years of living in Los Angeles, where his family still helps with his rent, he has failed to get his treasured possessions shipped out to him, and he’s distraught when he finds that they have been mouldering in his parents’ basement, where the dehumidifier long ago stopped working. He’s back there because his mother, Judy (Ingunn Omholt), has had another stroke and is in the hospital, barely able to function. His sister Meg (Kaya Scodelario) has made all the necessary arrangements; she has had to be the responsible adult in the family for some time now. But neither Noah nor Meg feels adult enough to cope when they’re poking about in that basement and they discover a dead body behind some flimsy panelling.

Of their parents’ responsibility for the body being there, there is no doubt. They both remember that week in 1997 when they were sent away on an unplanned trip, and returned to find the new panelling in the basement with shelves up against it. They also identify the body as that of Patty Metzger, who went missing around then. But what should they do about it? Meg wants to call the police. Noah doesn’t. He has been banking on the money he’ll get from the house when it’s eventually sold, he wants to protect the family’s reputation, and he warns Meg about the kind of harassment that relatives of murderers have to endure. She has a husband and children, and lives nearby. Wouldn’t it be better, after all this time, if they just quietly disposed of the body instead?

Naturally, this is the option they choose, and it does not go to plan.

Written by Michael MB Galvin and directed by Alex Winter, who also has a cameo as a confused man who has been wandering around the neighbourhood for several years, this is a sometimes raucous, sometimes bleak little comedy with subtext about growing up and the sometimes brutal nature of the compromises that we associate with maturity. Though Meg might initially seem like the vulnerable one, out of her depth in dealing with this altered situation, she is gradually forced to take control to the point where she discovers that she likes it – or, at least, that she’s no longer willing to put up with others’ lack of responsibility.

Meg and Noah are not initially suspects when the body comes to the attention of police, but their increasingly odd behaviour puts them at risk. When a blackmailing nurse (Billie Lourd) emerges to complicate matters further, the situation lurches wildly out of control. Of course, blackmail isn’t a smart thing to try on people whose cousin happens to be played by Anthony Carrington, who is very much in Victor Zsasz mode here, but playing up the socially awkward, hapless side of that character to enhanced comic effect. Bringing in somebody like that is never going to be free from complications. A problem which was bad enough to begin with gets exponentially worse.

A character-driven approach to the crime caper, which doesn’t let viewers forget that it’s focused on amateurs, Adulthood occasionally flounders but is, overall, a fun watch. The irredeemable horror of past events remains starkly visible but won’t stop you rooting for the siblings in the moment, even if you share some of the nurse’s misgivings about them. Curiously, it’s Carrington’s character who comes closest to being an innocent. What the film does well is to make viewers, as they reflect on the available choices, feel complicit themselves.

Adulthood is available on digital in the UK from 17 November.

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