Adult Life Skills – first look review | Little White Lies

Festivals

Adult Life Skills – first look review

17 Apr 2016

Words by Sophie Monks Kaufman

Silhouettes of two figures, one child and one adult, standing in doorway overlooking outdoor scene with boats and greenery.
Silhouettes of two figures, one child and one adult, standing in doorway overlooking outdoor scene with boats and greenery.
Rachel Tunnard’s impres­sive debut fea­ture takes a lighter look at the stress­es of mod­ern living.

The bat­tle for nuanced cul­tur­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion tends to be fought on behalf of race, class, gen­der and reli­gion. An issue that over­laps with class, and is def­i­nite­ly a by-prod­uct of eco­nom­ics, is scarce­ly ever the sub­ject of films: the fact that many adults are not domes­ti­cal­ly inde­pen­dent. In 2015, around 40 per cent of young adults aged between 15 and 34 were liv­ing with their par­ents, accord­ing to the UK’s Office for Nation­al Statistics.

In and of itself, inter-gen­er­a­tional shack­ing up is not mean­ing­ful. Depict­ing this set-up on film is not an urgent mat­ter of social jus­tice. It’s just that explor­ing the rea­sons why chil­dren aren’t mov­ing away from their par­ents has the scope to lift the lid on the var­i­ous ways that indi­vid­u­als cope or don’t cope with life. We don’t become self-suf­fi­cient as a mag­i­cal by-prod­uct of coming-of-age.

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Wel­come to Rachel Tunnard’s debut fea­ture, Adult Life Skills, in which Jodie Whit­tak­er plays 29-year-old York­shire woman, Anna, who is doing her best to push every­one away in order to be alone with her mem­o­ries and niche obses­sions. To sur­vive in this non-lucra­tive posi­tion she is liv­ing in her mum’s shed.

Adult Life Skills does its best work in show­ing both Anna’s inter­nal forces and the exter­nal pres­sures upon her as a result of her non-aspi­ra­tion hous­ing sit­u­a­tion. Moth­er is an irri­tat­ing­ly one-note snip­ing machine, con­stant­ly telling Anna to find her own flat. Progress, in this character’s eyes, is occu­py­ing what is wide­ly-under­stood to be a social norm for a woman push­ing 30.

Greater nuance is on show in Whittaker’s snap­py and guard­ed per­for­mance. She doesn’t aspire to the usu­al neo-lib­er­al cap­i­tal­ist ambi­tions. She doesn’t want a bet­ter job or bet­ter clothes or a man or chil­dren. She just wants to be left alone to make short films and relive larky footage shot with her twin broth­er, Ben. He died semi-recent­ly. Imag­in­ing the past, when he was alive, has con­sumed Anna’s present.

Tun­nard is not inter­est­ed in exploit­ing the sad­ness of Anna’s sit­u­a­tion. The tone of Adult Life Skills is brash­ly com­ic. If you are amused by a grand­moth­er wav­ing a spat­u­la and say­ing, ​“Shall I stick this up my arse,” or a bub­bly friend warn­ing of net­tle stings to the vagi­na, then the jokes will be a treat. If not, the com­e­dy is to be endured, as the meati­er themes of the film work their way to a touch­ing release, via Whittaker’s com­mand­ing per­for­mance, unlike­ly cama­raderie with an eight-year-old boy-next-door and an atmos­phere of gen­uine but unsen­ti­men­tal com­pas­sion for the process of grieving.

Adult Life Skills will pre­mière at the Tribeca Film Fes­ti­val ahead of receiv­ing a UK the­atri­cal release on 6 June.

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