ADULT LIFE SKILLS: Another Showcase For Jodie Whittaker’s Unique Charm

When it was first announced that Jodie Whittaker had been cast as Doctor Who’s Thirteenth Doctor – the first-ever woman to take on the role of the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey traveler from planet Gallifrey – fans who were familiar with her previous work had good reason to be excited. From her acclaimed screen debut opposite the legendary Peter O’Toole in Venus, to her role as a trainee nurse turned alien fighter in the hilarious Attack the Block, to her heart-wrenching portrayal of a grieving mom in the television series Broadchurch: there’s something about Whittaker’s screen presence that draws you in and makes you care deeply about what happens to her.

This natural charisma serves Whittaker well as the Doctor, and it does the same in writer-director Rachel Tunnard’s feature-length debut, Adult Life Skills. Whittaker reprises her starring role in this expanded version of Tunnard’s short film Emotional Fusebox, playing a young woman struggling to accept adult responsibilities after the death of her beloved twin brother. Yes, you’ve seen dramedies wrestling with these topics before, but where Adult Life Skills stands out is its star and the ensemble of equally oddball and utterly charming characters that surround her.

Actively Avoiding Adulthood

Anna (Whittaker) is approaching her 30th birthday, but she doesn’t feel like celebrating; all she wants to do is hide out in the shed in her mother’s yard and shoot weird little videos starring her thumbs as two space travelers who engage in odd existential conversations about things like the nihilism of Yogi Bear. She emerges from the shed only to go to her job at the local boating center, where she spends her time counting molehills and scrubbing down obscene graffiti. Not that there’s much else to do in the tiny town she lives in, but still, it’s an unfortunate existence.

Anna retreated to the shed after the death of her twin brother, Billy (Edward Hogg), which whom she created a series of eccentric videos posted online that provide silly life advice. By surrounding herself with Billy’s possessions and rewatching their old videos, Anna almost feels as though Billy is still with her. However, her impatient mother Marion (Lorraine Ashbourne) is insistent that Anna moves out of the shed and get on with her life.

When Anna’s old school friend Fiona (Rachael Deering) returns home from a trip around the world, she attempts to bring some spark back into Anna’s life – as does the socially awkward local real estate agent, Brendan (Brett Goldstein), who appears to have a crush on Anna. But it’s Anna’s unlikely connection with a cowboy-obsessed child named Clint (Ozzy Myers) whose mother is dying that ends up forcing her to stop wallowing in past grief and face the reality of her future.

An Exercise in Empathy

Even though her situation is to some degree understandable, Anna is often an unlikable character; her obsessive grief can veer sharply into selfishness, such as when she blows up at Fiona after her friend pointedly reminds her that she wasn’t the only one to love Billy. Yet even in these moments, you find yourself able to empathize with her.

It’s clear how much an oddball like Anna would rely on her equally odd twin for survival in such a small, old-fashioned English town, and how losing him – and her firm belief that no one else could possibly understand the severity of losing him – could make her question everything about her life thus far. “Am I still a twin if my twin is dead?” she asks at one point, still unable to accept identifying as anything other than Billy’s other half. It takes Clint’s entrance into her life for Anna to realize that she isn’t the only person to ever lose someone she loved and that despite his death, there are others left on this earth who love her too.

Whittaker embraces the entire gamut of Anna’s complexity and gives an emotionally intense yet still absurdly funny performance. Her scenes opposite Goldstein in particular, as the equally bizarre Brendan (clearly the only man apart from her twin who could ever attempt to understand the weird ways Anna’s mind works), fizz with delightfully awkward chemistry.

Also excellent is Deering as Anna’s friend Fiona; her bubbly personality and anecdotes from around the globe give the impression of someone who has her life together, yet in reality, Fiona is also a bit of a mess, just one who deals with it differently than Anna. Whereas Anna retreats from reality, Fiona races into it headfirst, even if it means she trips over own her feet in the process. Deering too has wonderful chemistry with Whittaker, with their scenes reflecting all of the equally pleasant and painful emotions that resurface when one reconnects with someone who has been gone. And as Clint, Myers manages to portray a troubled child whose annoying behavior is actually easy to sympathize with – a rare feat to be sure.

The only thing that really rubbed me the wrong way about Adult Life Skills was the music, most of which is performed by Micah P. Hinson. The soundtrack is packed with the kind of acoustic folk-pop one stereotypically associates with this subgenre – you know, the small-town coming-of-age dramedy – and thus highlights the aspects of the story that feel a tad too familiar. It’s also just boring, which does Adult Life Skills a disservice, as the film certainly is not. Many of the songs have lyrics, which I found both distracting and unnecessarily cloying; one doesn’t need words to understand the emotions inherent in a given situation when your lead actor is as easy to read and to watch as Whittaker. A more subtle score would have served the story far better.

Adult Life Skills: Conclusion

Adult Life Skills is a poignant examination of a young woman whose growth has been stunted by grief, carried by Jodie Whittaker’s charming performance. If nothing else, it will leave you hungry for the next season of Doctor Who to begin.

What do you think? Does this sound like a film fit for the Doctor herself? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Adult Life Skills is released in the United States on January 18, 2019. You can find more international release dates here.