

Title: Adult Beginners

MPAA Rating: R

Director: Ross Katz

Starring: Nick Kroll, Rose Byrne, Bobby Cannavale

Runtime: 1 hr 30 mins



What It Is: When Jake’s plans of a technological takeover are thwarted away by a part they can’t manufacture his entire wearable leaves his investors out of some cash, and Jake himself out of everything. After that collapse in his fortunes he’s forced to return home where his sister Justine (Byrne) and her husband Danny (Cannavale) now live with their little boy Teddy. This change of pace for the now jobless Jake might just change everyone’s perspective, for both himself and his family.

What We Think: Nic Kroll (unlike some previous roles) doesn’t annoy and that saying something! Real life couple Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale seem comfortable in their roles as a married couple. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel and often its plot points seem derivative and the overall feel seems very much like The Skeleton Twins lite. It is all charted territory, and plods along at a pace normally reserved for mollusks. The direction is vanilla, and maintains a blase attitude about the whole thing.

Our Grade: D+, Overall it’s a been there done that situation for a comedy that never seems to have a joke that leaves you in stitches. Couple that with some fairly annoying ancillary characters and you’re stuck with a disjointed mess of a film. One that never feels natural, but instead directed, wooden and uninteresting. Sure there may perhaps be something here for someone to enjoy and laugh at, but sadly I’m not the one that laughed at any of these things. I’ll be looking forward to the projects of these actors but on the whole this is a show you can go ahead and skip unless you really enjoy it.

Dig what we’re doing? Go ahead and subscribe so you can find out about all the news we have coming up, including a contest we have in the works.