'Adult Beginners': Sweet, but predictable homecoming tale
Jake Winton (Nick Kroll) rides backward on a train. He has lost not only all of his money, but the money of his supposed friends on a Google Glass-type product. With nowhere to turn, he heads to his sister's suburban home.
Jake Winton (Nick Kroll) rides backward on a train. He has lost not only all of his money, but the money of his supposed friends on a Google Glass-type product. With nowhere to turn, he heads to his sister's suburban home.
"Going backward makes a lot of people nauseous," the conductor says, a notion Jake dismisses.
As soon as he gets off the train, Jake immediately vomits.
Jake is not just running into the arms of his estranged sister, Justine (Rose Byrne), he's literally running back to the childhood home he has largely ignored since he left for college.
Adult Beginners, directed by local Ross Katz (who helmed HBO's Taking Chance), is a surprising departure for Kroll, best known for the outsize characters of his Comedy Central sketcher The Kroll Show and purposefully unpleasant egoist Ruxin on FX's The League. Kroll, who helped craft the story with married screenwriters Jeff Cox and Liz Flahive, plays Jake with a quiet core of sadness, so opposed to the characters he puts on TV. Instead of big and obnoxious, Kroll goes small and sweet with the humor he brings to Jake.
Adult Beginners is executive-produced by Mark and Jay Duplass (the former also a League star). They have a history of ushering to the screen stories of middle-class white people in early child-rearing years dissatisfied with their lives (as in their HBO dramedy Togetherness).
Adult Beginners fits into the genre, as Jake copes with his professional failure by delving into his familial life; Justine's discontent originates in the personal.
She's a harried mother of 3-year-old Teddy (adorable twins Caleb and Matthew Paddock), with another baby on the way. Her husband, Danny (Byrne's real-life partner, Bobby Cannavale), loves her dearly - when she forgets to brush her teeth before bed, Danny brings a toothbrush and a spit cup to his pregnant wife - but they are both exhausted and disconnected.
Byrne, like Kroll, brings a dejected intensity to Justine, a woman who gave up law school to care for her dying mother. Byrne and Kroll have a lovely bond, especially when they bring Teddy to a swim class to learn a skill their parents neglected to teach them - and the inspiration for the title.
Byrne and Kroll are the reasons to see Adult Beginners. The story itself feels truncated, like there are bits missing that we should see, ambling along. It's all very low stakes. We know how this is going to turn out. But it is a pleasure watching Kroll and Byrne to the end.
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Adult Beginners *** (Out of four stars)
Directed by Ross Katz. With Nick Kroll, Rose Byrne, Bobby Cannavale, Jane Krakowski.
Running time: 1 hour, 30 mins.
Parent's guide: R (language and some drug use).
Playing at: PFS at the Roxy.