Adulthood – coming soon
With hotly anticipated follow-up Adulthood now showing at UK cinemas, there’s never better time to get reacquainted with the cast of 2006’s Kidulthood, a rough and ready tale of bored British suburban youths, which catapulted Noel Clarke to stardom for his direction and his portrayal of bullying bad guy Sam in the film, became something of a word of mouth phenomenon, and a success story for independent homegrown film-making talent.
Labelled by some as a poster movie for happy slapping, Kidulthood principally revolves around three teenagers and their associates, who are given the day off school after the suicide of a fellow student; what follows is a relentless run through a hyperreal 24 hours covering sex, violence, drink, drugs, theft, betrayal, knifing, gun toting, pregnancy…
Whilst unrealistic in the sense that it crams a whole weeks worth of teenage activity into a single day, it is refreshing in that is represents a version of Britain either ignored or woefully misinterpreted by mainstream culture – it’s not Notting Hill.
The film accelerates towards its conclusion at a house party, where events unravel in a spectacularly violent fashion. If it sounds like a massive downer, it’s not; the dialogue is peppered with sharp, vulgar vernacular familiar to anyone who has ever been a teenager. Despite the editing being MTV-slick and propelled by a soundtrack composed entirely of UK-based acts, the violence isn’t overtly glamorised – at the time Clarke said that the film was a warning to young people attracted to a life of crime: “It might look cool but you don’t want to end up like any of them.”
Two years later sees Clarke reprising his role as Sam in Adulthood, who is dealing with the fallout of his actions in previous film. Faces from the past come back to haunt him, as he struggles to make amends with others whilst rebuilding a life for himself. Adulthood, like its kid brother, is ultimately a film about revenge, actions and their consequences.
