Dir. Scott Coffey
IFC Films
4.5/5 stars
In “Adult World,” Amy Anderson (Emma Roberts) is a caricature of the recent college graduate. She’s an entitled, fame-obsessed former poetry major who legitimately thinks, and repeatedly states, that she is suffering. Undoubtedly, it is her destiny to become the next great American poet, preferably before she hits her mid-20s. Swamped in loan payments for Amy’s college education, her parents ask her to get a job. This assault on her aspirations leads the unpublished young author out into the real “adult” world. Well, kind of.
Unable to find another job, Amy, a naïve and oft-judgmental virgin, starts working at a porn shop called (you guessed it!) Adult World, owned by a sexually charged old woman (Cloris Leachman). Amy consoles herself with the knowledge that “Salinger worked in a meat-processing plant.” It’s at the store where she makes two new friends: her manager, Alex (Evan Peters) and a transgender hairdresser Rubia (Armando Riesco), who challenge her perceptions of life in the real world. Of course, this setting creates a breeding ground for crude jokes about the customers. Apart from that and the self-referential name of the shop, however, writer Andy Cochran could have honestly had Amy start working anywhere. The real interest in the film comes from the world created outside the safety and perpetual immaturity of the sex shop.
At a low point in her life, Amy finds solace in “Screams of Abandonment,” a book of angst-ridden, “nearly ancient” poetry from the late 1980s by Rat Billings (Jon Cusack). Cusack expertly delivers his lines, which fly right over Amy’s head, with a world-weary carelessness evocative of his fallen status in the literary community. Engaging in some light stalking, Amy relentlessly tails Rat, fueled by an unfortunate desire to be just like him. Still, she worries she can’t achieve his greatness since “you can’t be a wunderkind after 22.” Just as soon as Rat feeds off of her attention, which is at times idolizing and at others romantic, he is just as quick to reject it outright. Still, he serves as a mentor, if not in the way that either of them intends.
There’s something painful about how unaware Amy is of her place in the world. She creates pseudo-hardships for herself, bemoaning cleaning toilets and taking the bus, while she’s blind to the real experience and irony and inspiration, however simple, that are happening all around her.
One could criticize Roberts for over-the-top acting, but rather than a defect in her talent, it is a result of the way she artfully taps into how Amy makes a production of her life. Amy is constantly in a state of performance, mimicking the greats and searching for material that will make her work haunting and important. The overly cliché dialogue and hyper-tragedizing of everyday obstacles presents a satire of youthful ennui and the way in which we act out our roles; an aspiring poet should act like this, a has-been author should act like this, an activist should act like this.
“Adult World” is a smart, clever and intentionally melodramatic film about the desire to reach the finish line without participating in the race. It’s engorged with crap poetry and errors in estimation of self-worth, yet it carries an important message about not taking yourself too seriously. It teaches the invaluable lessons of lowering your expectations and just living your life, while still encouraging the idea that some things you have to do just to please yourself. The film doesn’t fight against the trope that artistic youths are terrible people, but it does suggest they’re better off if they were just self-interested instead of self-obsessed.
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