Adult Life Skills

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.

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.