A different way of telling a story

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Rushed resolution takes away from well-acted intelligently written comedy.

Jake (Nick Kroll) screws up a business deal and loses lots of money. His investors are angry. He leaves NYC and goes back to the family home. His sister Justine (Rose Byrne) is pregnant and puts him to work babysitting his nephew Teddy. Her husband Danny (Bobby Cannavale) is fixing up the home for sale. She signs Jake up with Teddy in a swim class for mommy and kid. Jake suspects that Danny is cheating with the real estate agent.Rose Byrne is utterly charming. Bobby Cannavale is a great suburban dad. Nick Kroll is fine for this role although his big screen charisma is still in doubt. The material feels lighter than it could have been. The drama is not pushed that hard. There is one good moment when Justine downplays something which actually elevates the material. There are a couple of those scenes and the really endearing Byrne which make this better than nice.

Greetings again from the darkness. It's certainly understandable that the Duplass Brothers ("The League") are working relentlessly to take advantage of their window of creative opportunity. In the vein of their HBO show "Togetherness", this is another com-dram with the theme of thirty-somethings coming to terms with adulthood and responsibility.In their role as Producers for this latest project, Team Duplass has assembled a strong group: director Ross Katz (himself best known as a Producer of In the Bedroom and Lost in Translation), and funny folks Nick Kroll, Rose Byrne, Bobby Cannavale, Joel McHale, Jane Krakowski, Bobby Moynihan, Paula Garces, and Celia Weston. Unfortunately, the script does not rise to the level of the on screen talent, leaving us with a mostly benign story with few laughs and little message.Things kick off with Kroll's character in full crash-and-burn mode when his entrepreneurial offering "Mind's I" implodes just before it is scheduled for rollout. He loses his money, his investors' money, and most any semblance of the fair weather friends one accumulates while living the high life in NYC. Packing up what little dignity he retains, Kroll heads to the suburbs to live with his pregnant sister (Rose Byrne), her husband (Bobby Cannavale) and their 3 year old son Teddy.It's not that the path is obvious, but rather than it's executed so blandly. The zingers and physical humor are mostly lacking, and the film can't seem to decide if it wants us to laugh, or if it would rather prove how tough parenthood and adulthood and responsibility can be. Bobby Moynihan spikes the comedy in a short scene, and Paula Garces may be the most interesting character despite only appearing in a few scenes. The swimming lessons sequences led by Jane Krakowski are mostly vacuous, and are used instead to focus on the insecurities of Kroll and Byrne. As in "Togetherness", the kids seem to be an afterthought … like a lamp … but less than a sconce.The scenes are well paced and the story clicks right along, but overall it plays more like a TV show … albeit one with an abundance of cursing, too few laughs, and no new insight into the tough world that awaits as we step out of childhood (evidently in our mid-30's).

Jake is not awesome. Jake is also broke and now stuck living on his sister's air mattress in New Jersey in the independent comedy Adult Beginners.Adult Beginners appears to be judged a bit more harshly, and rather unjustly, due to individual viewers' biases against Nick Kroll. The plot may not be the most original, but the characters are real and identifiable, and as far as indie films go, a well done effort.Jake, played by Nick Kroll, is an entrepreneur behind the next big tech item. Unfortunately, its production is doomed and he is out his entire investment, his and several others' large venture capital. What does one do when they've failed in Manhattan? Why, go back to your family with your tail between your legs to the suburbs of New Jersey! His sister Justine, played by Rose Byrne, isn't completely pleased but agrees to let him stay for three months and watch her and her husband's (Bobby Cannavale) son.The plot has been done to death, and that is the only thing working against Adult Beginners as a film. The character types are also far from original, from the narcissistic protagonist to the less than perfect family he is forced to stay with. So, you may ask yourself, why bother watching the movie? Because, Adult Beginners is enjoyable. The drama of the story is not too serious so the film still has an 'escapist' effect. The writing is natural and fluid and the acting realistic and entertaining. The fun is in the medley of recognizable faces that make cameos throughout the film. It seems unfathomable that someone could hate Adult Beginners because it is a perfectly likable film, and is in fact, quite a nice watch and I would do it again.Please check out our website for full reviews of all the recent releases.