Review of Adulthood (2008) by Alisha A — 02 Nov 2008

Brilliant follow up to Kidulthood, Picking up on the events of what happened six years after the events of the first movie we find that the so called hunter has now become the hunted. Adulthood is a coming of age drama as we see characters from Kidulthood grown up with their own lives at university or with their family.

Seeing the change in characters makes the viewer feel associated with the story as the realism behind the change in circumstances is an occurrence that happens with everyone.

The plot uses issues of loyalty, hatred and coming of age to get the point of realism across to the audience. The strong focusing upon such issues fulfils the drama genre and creates that ultimate hard real life sad feeling. The plot is consistent but the dialogue feels very repetitive and is often hard to comprehend with the constant use of slang. The performances and facial reactions are enough to make the issues understandable, in particular Clarke who you can empathize with. Adam Deacon steals the show, as he did in Kidulthood and I like how the film shows how peoples lives can change as a result of an event such as the death of Trife in the first film. Anybody who has seen both films should agree that Kidulthood is the better of the two. The storyline is clearer and easier to follow and it is not as dark or as serious as Adulthood until the very end. However Adulthood is an amazing film with an excellent performance from Noel Clarke as a director and an actor.