Amy (Emma Roberts) is an aspiring “voice of a generation” poet who is graduating from Syracuse University and moving back in with her parents in the Syracuse area. Though she has ambition, the little poetry we hear from her — including the verses she uses to punctuate her everyday conversations — are riddled with cliches. Her parents are supportive of her writing, but her father points out that considering her massive college debt they can’t afford to pay her bills as she receives rejection after rejection from poetry journals. She ends up taking the only job that will have her: working the counter at the Adult World sex shop. The shop is owned by Mary Anne (Cloris Leachman — but don’t get used to seeing her), but is primarily run by the young manager Alex (Evan Peters), the type of guy with the foppish mound of curls that young ladies find so charming these days. If that wasn’t bad enough, she has an awkward interaction with her favorite living poet, Rat Billings (John Cusack) at a book signing, who sees her as some kind of freak.
What’s smart about Adult World is that it directly relates to so many young people who have been told all their lives: that you’re special, which, as many who enter the “adult world” soon find out, simply isn’t true. Amy points out that she got straight A’s and scored in the top percentile on her SATs, but does not realize that those accomplishments mean jack in comparison to life experience — which Amy completely lacks. Billings tries to make it clear to her that she has never learned about failure nor hardship in her suburban upbringing. In fact, the highlight of the film is Cusack, who is definitely channeling latter day Bill Murray in his role as sarcastic, ironic mentor. His interactions with Roberts are very fun to watch. Another great performance comes from Armando Riesco, who plays the transvestite Rubia, a regular at Adult World who befriends Amy. In fact, when both Rubia and Billings start to fade from the film in the final twenty minutes, much of the energy is gone. Roberts is adorable and can hold her own, but it’s hard to compete with Cusack at his best. In fact, the whole “wrap everything in a cute, happy bow ending” really sucks a lot of the power out of the film.
I was pleasantly surprised to read that screenwriter Andy Cochran‘s previous works include Super Sweet 16: The Movie and an episode of Teen Wolf, meaning that as hack-ish as that work sounds he had a much better story to tell. Director Scott Coffey‘s first film, 2006’s Ellie Parker, similarly dealt with a woman seeking fame for her work yet not being prepared to handle it. However, Adult World deals with a character who hasn’t even achieved anything yet thinks of herself highly. Her enthusiasm for herself is annoying, but that’s the point.
I can see a lot of young people getting turned off by the film because of its message, which runs contrary to the “You’re so special!” stuff they’ve been hearing their whole lives. But like Billings says in the film, “if everything is great, then nothing can be great.” This is a lesson that anyone graduating from college needs to learn — that one’s upbringing and good grades don’t exactly prepare you for the “adult world.”
RATING: A fun comedy that speaks a lot of truth about today’s youth (7/10).
Tribeca Film Festival Screening Times
April 26 9:30PM School of Visual Arts
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