I wanted so
desperately to like Adult World, but
that was made impossible by horribly passive direction from Scott Coffrey and a
bipolar screenplay from Andy Cochran that veers back and forth from obvious and
cliché plot points to forced quirkiness in character development. Despite
having a few unique things to say about our society’s desire for fame and
celebrity, Adult World’s positive ideas are overtaken by the screenplay’s
assortment of purposefully unsympathetic characters and a hipster ideology. Only the supporting performance by John Cusack saves this film from being entirely tiresome.
Emma Roberts
heads up the cast as Amy, a forcefully flawed college graduate with naïve
aspirations at becoming a famous poet. Forced to take a job at a sex shop with
the significant name ‘Adult World,’ after her parents refuse to continue paying
for endless poetry contests, Amy learns that she has to live before
convincingly being able to write. Roberts’ real life partner, Evan Peters,
plays the convenient artist co-worker in the sex shop, providing a surprisingly
chemistry-void rom-com resolution. First
of all, the virgin artist who must have sex by the end of the film in order to
signify a change in their art is beyond unoriginal. Second of all, there is
little nothing to admire about Amy. Despite Roberts’ complete committal to the
distasteful aspects of this aspiring artist, she just comes off as a more
hyperactive and high-pitched version of Greta Gerwig’s character from Frances Ha (2012).
The saving grace
of this film comes in the form of Amy’s equally unsympathetic mentor figure, a
faded alcoholic author who has seen decades pass since his greatest success.
Rat Billings
The Adult World
DVD includes deleted and alternate scenes, as well as a trailer.
Entertainment Value:
6.5/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 4/10
Historical
Significance: 2/10
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