‘Adopting Audrey’ Review: Jena Malone Puts Herself Up for Adoption

For so long as there was impartial cinema, there have been protagonists who aren’t fairly prepared for maturity. From “Slacker” to “Frances Ha” to roughly 78 % of rejected Sundance submissions in any given yr, there’s a time honored custom of filmmakers discovering inspiration in these trying to squeeze just a few extra years out of their adolescence.

However with every passing movie about an artsy kind who can’t get their shit collectively, the strain on the subsequent filmmaker to justify the existence of their belated coming-of-age story will increase. When your viewers has seen these tropes as typically as we’ve got, you need to provide one thing greater than “wow, seems adulting is de facto arduous!” Sadly, “Adopting Audrey” falls wanting that normal. M. Cahill’s new movie a few lady who places herself up for adoption in her early thirties is just too unintentionally unusual to be an efficient drama, however too decided to be one to succeed as a comedy. The result’s a colorless retreading of well-worn beats with out a lot fascinating substance to point out for the hassle.

Once we meet Audrey, it’s instantly clear that her existence leaves so much to be desired. Floating via life in upstate New York, she works a depressing job at a name heart (that she’s quickly fired from), lives in a tragic condominium (that she’s quickly pressured to vacate), and will get most of her human contact from an totally unremarkable fuckbuddy (who quickly breaks up together with her). Estranged from her household and uninterested in the vagabond life that led her to carry seven jobs prior to now two years, she finds herself at a crossroads, armed with nothing greater than the conclusion that her present strategy isn’t working.

Audrey’s one supply of pleasure is watching cute animal YouTube movies on her cellphone every evening, and the algorithm ultimately exhibits her an advert for one thing known as grownup adoption. The pattern permits younger adults to hunt a second set of oldsters to assist information them via the challenges of maturity. Considering she has nothing to lose, Audrey throws her hat into the ring.

After just a few unsuccessful interviews, she meets Sunny (Emily Kuroda) and Otto (Robert Starvation-Bühler), two remarried widows trying to develop their household. Or not less than, that’s what Sunny is searching for. She meets with Audrey with out telling her stereotypically gruff German husband that she desires to undertake an grownup, assuming that he’ll come round as soon as she introduces them.

It might be a stretch to say the plan “works,” but it surely goes much better than it ought to have. Otto doesn’t fairly perceive the thought, however can’t discover a purpose to object to it both. They comply with “undertake” Audrey for a six-month take a look at run, although it’s by no means fairly clear how anybody (together with the viewers) is meant to profit from the association.

Audrey doesn’t stay together with her new “dad and mom,” however steadily exhibits up for dinner with Sunny and Otto (and his getting old mom) and helps with some family chores. Finally, she and Otto make plans to construct a yard treehouse for his grandchildren. The undertaking results in a number of allegedly humorous scenes that resemble a scrapped CBS sitcom pilot with the snort tracks eliminated, in addition to some father-daughter bonding between Otto and Audrey.

When Otto isn’t going comically apeshit about steaks being undercooked at a barbecue or doing a bizarre Chevy Chase impression as he will get sawdust in his face, he finds time to take heed to Audrey’s issues and provide some knowledge. We be taught that Audrey blames her failure to launch on the truth that her pet hen was run over by a automotive when she was eight years previous, and Otto offers some robust love as he encourages her to maneuver on from her twenty years of poultry trauma. She additionally loses a finger and will get it reattached sooner or later, however that’s neither right here nor there. Few issues are actually resolved, however each Audrey and her dad and mom find yourself discovering their lives barely improved by the experiment.

In a meandering, character-driven movie, a compelling protagonist can cowl a large number of structural sins. Sadly, “Adopting Audrey” doesn’t have one. Not solely are Audrey’s profession and private life going nowhere, however she’s not devoting the misplaced power to anything both. She exhibits no ambition (her answer to dropping her job is discovering a second set of oldsters!), demonstrates few actual abilities, and principally squanders the alternatives that she does get. She doesn’t have sufficient of a persona to make her aimless wandering appear entertaining, nor has she confronted a severe sufficient problem to generate a lot sympathy. In the long run, you’d be forgiven for questioning why anybody felt compelled to provide this slice of her life the cinematic therapy.

None of which is to say that Jena Malone is unhealthy within the titular function. Fairly the other! The actress finds a strategy to inject some film star sparkle into an totally unremarkable character, elevating the movie into one thing that usually borders on watchable. Her efficiency is each a testomony to her charisma and a chilling reminder of what the film might have was with a much less competent star. 

Very similar to its eponymous protagonist, “Adopting Audrey” makes no makes an attempt to set the world on hearth. Cahill demonstrates minimal storytelling ambition, filling the 90 minutes with normal shot-reverse shot dialogue and sitcom-esque establishing pictures. And the movie by no means fairly figures out what story it desires to inform, fluctuating between makes an attempt at severe drama and one thing that, for lack of a greater phrase, might in all probability be described as comedy. In its greatest moments, “Adopting Audrey” acknowledges how arduous it may be to suit all the items of your life collectively to type one thing coherent. Sadly, the movie suffers from the very same downside.

Grade: C-

Vertical Leisure will launch “Adopting Audrey” in theaters and on VOD on Friday, August 26.

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