Long-buried secrets from the past resurface in Alex Winter’s Adulthood, a suburban noir comedy that takes the concept of skeletons in the closet literally to very mixed results. When Meg (Kaya Scodelario) and Noah (Josh Gad) return to their childhood home to take care of their mother, they find more than they bargained for in the form of a decaying body hidden in the walls of the basement.

They identify the corpse as that of their missing neighbor Patty, who disappeared when they were children in the early 90s. The town blamed her then-husband and the family scattered. Meg and Noah reflect on all of this in one of the movie’s weirdly sweet moments when Adulthood is still ramping up. But as the film attempts to hit its stride, it becomes a tonal mess in just about every way.

Adulthood Can’t Quite Hit The Right Tone

Instead of alerting the police and potentially incriminating their ailing mother, Noah and Meg decide to hide the body themselves, leading to a game of blackmail and murder that is simply confounding. As the bodies pile up and the situation becomes increasingly untenable, Adulthood‘s characters make increasingly baffling decisions that are underscored by the fact that Gad and Scodelario feel like they’re in two entirely different movies.

Both are great performers, but Scodelario is playing the material straight and, against Gad’s comedic relief, there’s an awkward tension between their performances that never quite evens out. It doesn’t help that Noah and Meg aren’t even entirely believable as siblings. There’s no deeper connection felt after their initial reunion, and lingering resentments from over the years are mentioned and then glossed over in favor of the plot.

Adulthood could’ve been a lot more effective if it lingered on the emotional impact of the situation. It feels like the film wants to do that, but Winter’s script often insists on adding levity that only further confuses the tone and never quite lands. The funniest person in the film is Barry breakout Anthony Corrigan as Meg and Noah’s sketchy cousin. He’s brought in to help scare Billie Lourd’s blackmailer, and a late scene in the film featuring swords, a crossbow, and two katanas is a highlight.

These set pieces do little to carry the film, though, and Adulthood ultimately seems to find itself lost in the middle of two opposing forces, striving for comedy even as it remains grounded in its suburban noir construct. It ends up making for a film that’s not all that funny or emotional.

Adulthood strives to hit a certain manic energy fitting for the escalating situation in the film, but it never reaches a full-on delirium that would suit its outlandish premise, even in its best moments. Instead, the pacing of Adulthood is rather staid, even as Noah and Meg find themselves in deeper and deeper trouble with every ill-advised decision. By the time the film turns off autopilot, it’s far too late, and the ending lands with the dull thud of a long-rotted body wrapped in an old rug.

Adulthood premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. The film will be released in theaters on September 19.