Adulthood - out now
Featuring bullying, suicide, casual sex, hard drugs, organized crime, murder, all involving fresh faced teens, the film Kidulthood caused quite a stir when it was released in 2006. Now, six years on, Dr Who actor Noel Clarke returns as the thuggish, baseball bat wielding killer Sam Peel in follow-up Adulthood. He and his posse are still leading a life of crime, having graduated from happy slapping to drug-dealing, but this time the film comes with a conscience.
It also comes with a new director in the form of Noel Clarke, who starred in and wrote the screenplay for Kidulthood. Clarke’s character Sam is back on the streets after a six-year stint in prison for murdering his rival Trife. With friends of the dead boy angling for his blood, Clarke is determined to keep his head down – but those aware of his release have other ideas.
As with Kidulthood, the action all takes place over a single day. Having had all the violence kicked out of him – cue prison flashback – Sam is looking to make amends for his actions. Finding no-one in, he visits Trife’s grave, where he is confronted by a man who tries to stab him. Later he meets up with his former girlfriend Claire (Madeleine Fairley) who is now with a new boyfriend, Hayden (Danny Dyer). Others, too, have moved on – Jay (Adam Deacon) has gone on a downwards spiral and is now dealing drugs, whilst Moony (Femi Oyeniran) is at uni and wants nothing more to do with his former life of crime. Sam befriends Lexi (Scarlett Alice Johnson), a drug addict, who helps him track down his family. Meanwhile Jay is desperate to avenge the death of Trife. Will Sam be able to make amends with the gang and protect his family before he is found by those looking for him?
In spite of a new director, Adulthood is almost identical to its predecessor in terms of style. Cinematorgrapher, Brian Tufano, famed for his work on Trainspotting, brings raw tension and hyperkinetic energy to the film, heightened, Lola style, by an aggressive garage soundtrack. The exigencies of the first film remain, but this time they are tinged with a sense of regret for past wrongs and a wish, in some of the characters at least, to move on. Other characters, such as the pathetic addict Lexi, show the terrible consequences of mixing with the wrong crowd.
Whilst the film has received criticism from some quarters for its lack of plot and “unrelenting aggro”, there are many poignant moments, such as the time when Sam visits the family of the murdered Trife, or when he returns home to find the locks changed. “You make me feel so ashamed,” his mother tells him, after he batters the door down in frustration. Occasional moments of comic relief also gleam through the shadowy London underworld. On the whole though this is a pretty gloomy film. Clarke excels at gritty hoodie dialogue in the hard London vernacular, but the script goes limp when dealing with groups alien to Adulthood territory, such as older women or the middle classes. The constant barrage of threats, recriminations and mindless violence also becomes rather tiresome, with characters seldom taking the time to consider the consequences of their actions.
Noel Clarke really provides the film’s fulcrum, excelling both in front of and behind the camera. His punchy script is an admirable attempt to portray the madness and horror of Broken Britain, which, while embracing many of the same themes as Kidulthood does not make the mistake of repeating the original.
