Adult Beginners, the directorial debut by producer Ross Katz, features an
incredible cast of funny people from top to bottom. Nick Kroll, Rose Byrne, and
Bobby Cannavale sit at the top of the list, but the supporting roles are filled
by the likes of Joel McHale, Bobby Moynihan, Mike Birbiglia, Jane Krakowski, and
Jason Mantzoukas. So this is undoubtedly a comedy from Katz, who is best known
for producing emotional relationship dramas like Lost in Translation and In
the Bedroom. Maybe it's that experience looking at complicated human
feelings with subtlety that separates Adult
Beginners from every other indie dramedy about starting over.
Kroll, who came up with the story himself,
is known for his caustic wit and sniveling persona seen on The Kroll Show and in The League. He brings much of
that same personality here, but leaves enough room for a bit of humanity to
slip through the cracks. He plays Jake, a potential entrepreneur with techy
invention known as the Mind's I. He's poured every penny into this Google Glass
rip-off, along with all of his friends' money, but when the manufacturer can't
produce a key part he's screwed. Having lost everything, including his
gold-digger of a girlfriend (who was JUST making out with him), Jake retreats
to his childhood home where his pregnant sister Justine (Byrne) lives with her
husband Danny Cannavale) and young son, Teddy.
We've all been through really tough times
and for many of us, certainly for me, home is where I want to go to forget
about it. So we understand Jake's need for the creature comforts the place he
grew up can provide. However things aren't quite that simple. Jake needs to
earn his keep, and that means becoming Teddy's nanny, a job he's wildly
unsuited for. Justine and Danny have their own problems, too, whether it is
money, work pressures, and the threat of infidelity.
Many of these things may sound familiar,
in particular the bond that comes to form between Jake and Teddy, but don't go
in thinking for a second this is some artificial nonsense like St. Vincent. We
understand the depths of his self-loathing, and the simple pleasure he takes
from eating frozen yogurt, smoking pot, and doing all the things he did when
happy. It's a way of figuring out who one truly wants to be. By the same token,
Danny and Justine's relationship has real texture, not just a series of sitcom
parental issues. She's been so distracted by work and motherhood that her
husband has become lost in the mix, which has driven him to do things he would
later come to regret. But the film's real joy, and this is a credit to
screenwriters Jeff Cox and Liz Flahive, is how these characters come to rely on
one another and grow from their experience. When Jake first arrives he's been
estranged from the family for months, but as Justine reconnects with him the
old childhood rhythms begin to emerge. The cozy look at sibling relationships
will remind many of last year's The Skeleton
Twins, which like this was produced by the Duplass Brothers. They've
got the market cornered on smart, funny Indies about messed-up family dynamics.
Adult Beginners' insights are a bit slight, and the
ending is way too gooey, but there's nothing wrong with a film that unabashedly
says being a childish grown-up is perfectly okay sometimes.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
