Adulthood

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Horrorphile - April 2009

Adulthood

April 1st 2009 23:25

The wasted youth of Noel Clarke’s London really are a pitiful bunch. In the sequel to Menhaj Huda’s Kidulthood (2006) screenwriter and actor Clarke has been handed the director’s reigns. Adulthood (2008) takes place six years after Sam (Clarke) killed Trife with a baseball bat and was sentenced for manslaughter. He’s out of prison, back on the streets and keen to go straight, but trouble finds him immediately; Trife’s younger brother Jay (Adam Deacon) is out for revenge.

Sam has to stay one step ahead of Jay and his posse, he has to keep his wits about him as every second familiar and not-so-familiar face he sees might or might not want to trick him or spit in his face or stab him in the heart. Sam is befriended by Lexi (Scarlet Alice Johnson), a young cokehead, but is she genuine? Sam’s mother can only stare at him in abject sorrow. Claire (Madeleine Fairley) and Alisa (Red Madrell) don’t want a bar of him.

Noel Clarke as Sam

Whereas Kidulthood came across as a fresh and urgent perspective of the promiscuous and aggressive London working-class – and wayward middle-class – youth and sported strong indelible performances from its mostly unknown cast, Adulthood feels too much like repetition. Worse, it actually seems to be devouring its tail. Nothing about the movie offers anything new in the environment set up by the first movie. The acting is uneven and frequently forced, and Noel Clarke’s directing style, while frisky and oh-so-cool with its shifting split-panel stylistics, looks too much like a music clip (so much so I expected Mike Skinner from The Streets to burst into view and start rapping to the camera).

In an indirect way Adulthood felt like it was striving to be a melding of Larry Clark’s Kids (1995) and Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973). The truth of the matter is Alan Clarke’s Scum (1979) is a far more brutally realistic and affecting movie about the horror and moral degradation of the violence of youth and the pressure of the system than Adulthood or Kidulthood put together.

Adulthood Noel Clarke and Scarlet Alice Johnson

Sam broods while Lexi (Scarlet Alice Johnson) sulks

Adulthood, and to a lesser degree Kidulthood, sports a pretty bang-on representation of the youth dialect of the London streets; an impenetrable (to “foreign” ears) bastardization of the English language mixed with West Indian and Caribbean patois. It’s pure slang, and spoken with the thick-as-bricks accents it makes for a very difficult understanding on what is being said from person to person. Not every character talks this way, but most of them. Truth be told, your average American audience will not embrace this movie, simply on the basis of it sounding like an entirely foreign language.

But it’s not all cold pork pies and luke-warm fish and chips; the character arc of Lexi is the movie’s most interesting and sustained feature, more so than Sam’s brooding, perpetually-hooded, I’ll shed a few tears even though I’m still pulling the same grim expression. Also strong is the performance of Adam Deacon as mad-as-a-hatter Jay, who’s got a gun and he definitely wants to use it. And Femi Oyeniran as Sam’s troubled brother Moony holds attention. Ben Drew (aka rapper Plan B) comes across as if he’s channeling a young Chris Penn! It’s a shame Ray Winstone’s daughter Jaime Winstone didn’t return to the sequel as she was the best thing about Kidulthood, but it seems she had other donkeys to punch.

Sam and Jay (Adam Deacon) share a Tarantino moment

Despite its cinematic intentions Adulthood still feels like a pumped-up, foul-mouthed cross between an episode of The Bill and Eastenders. It plods along, frequently falling prey to histrionics. In fact I’m sure this movie would rival Nil by Mouth (1997) or Casino (1995) as having the word “fuck” and its variations said the most times in a movie. But then, that’s rebellious youth for you; all crass, no class.

If you enjoyed Kidulthood you might be intrigued as to the further exploits of Sam “as a man”, but Adulthood, takes one step forward and two steps back, only serving to show you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Looks the same, but punches harder

Here's the trailer:

Adulthood DVD is courtesy of Hopscotch Films, many thanks!

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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