The opening shot of Dustin Guy Defa’s micro-drama “The Adults” feels like an outtake from a Wes Anderson film, as the camera remains fixed on a standard-issue business hotel room — single bed, nightstand, small desk, unmemorable art, walls painted in a sickly brown — while Michael Cera’s Eric enters and settles in. He tosses his duffel bag on the bed, takes out a smart speaker, cues up some music, connects his laptop, throws open the curtains to reveal a view of autumnal trees and a wall, and there we have it. We’re in Indie Realistic Cinema territory, folks, and it’s more than likely there will be some deadpan humor, some achingly twee moments, some (we hope) smart dialogue and ultimately one or two quietly powerful revelations.
Check marks all around. Writer-director Defa has delivered a small and quietly compelling low-key gem filled with offbeat characters who are perfectly normal — which means they’re kind of odd. The 35-year-old Cera, natural and authentic, plays a variation on his likable sad-sack persona in that Eric still dresses like a college student and seems likable and unassuming, but he has an unnervingly direct manner that borders on rudeness, and there’s a sadness permeating his demeanor. He also lies so effortlessly it’s disarming, as when he tells his sisters he won’t be spending his first night in town with them because he’s going to visit his friend Scott (Christopher Denham) who has just welcomed a baby, and then he tells Scott he’s going to spend the night with his sisters.
“The baby is waiting to meet you,” says Scott, over the phone.
“I’m waiting to meet the baby,” replies Eric, which is such a perfectly strange and hilarious way of responding. Also, it’s quite clear Eric couldn’t give two bleeps about meeting the baby.
We don’t know much about Eric, other than he has returned to his childhood home from Portland for a short visit. He seems to be self-employed and brags about how he has standing with the airlines because he travels so much, but we see no evidence of any great financial success. At one point Eric’s phone rings, and he acts as if it’s a pressing business matter, but that’s just another one of Eric’s impromptu lies.
Whatever Eric’s circumstances, it’s been years since he’s seen his sisters. Rachel (a terrific Hannah Gross) works as a producer at a local radio station and lives in the home where they grew up. (Their mother died a few years back; there’s no mention of a father.) Their much younger sister Maggie (Sophia Lillis in a shining performance) has dropped out of college after a year and is living in an apartment with a roommate. Rachel, still shedding the baggage from a recent breakup, is resentful of Eric for abandoning them, while the adoring Maggie is literally dancing and singing with excitement upon her brother’s return.
When we say dancing and singing, we mean it. It seems Eric and Rachel and Maggie were really into performing when they were younger, to the point where they choreographed song and dance routines, and they often spoke to each other in affected “character” voices, which they continue to do now. We get the sense they spent an almost unhealthy amount of time together, three eccentric siblings against the world. However it all played out, Rachel and Eric in particular are incapable of communicating honestly and directly, without leaning on play-acting and those weird voices.
Eric keeps extending his stay and telling his sisters it’s because he wants to spend a little more time with them, but the truth is he spent his first night in town playing poker with some old acquaintances — and after he suffered a bad beat in the first game, he has insisted on playing the next night, which leads to an invitation to a higher-stakes game behind locked doors in a warehouse. We could infer Eric has a gambling problem, but he’s a poker player; he has skills. It’s more like he’s addicted to the psychological warfare of the game, and the adrenaline rush of going all in. (It’s refreshing to see a movie with No Limit Hold ’Em scenes in which the distribution of cards, the betting patterns and the hands are authentic and realistic.)
Like films such as “The Savages” (2007) and “The Skeleton Twins” (2014), this is a story of adult siblings dealing with heavy baggage and complicated feelings. (At times it seems as if Eric, Rachel and Maggie could all be on the spectrum. Maggie in particular seems to be coping with dramatic mood swings.) Writer-director Defa occasionally overdoes it with the precious touches, but there are also some beautiful grace notes, as when the trio bonds to the sounds of Men at Work’s “Overkill.” breaking into a routine that pays tribute to the Madison café dance from Godard’s “Bande à part.” This is not one of those reunion movies where we’re left with the feeling everything’s going to be all right after all — but we do think these flawed but basically good people are better off when they lean on one another.
