Name: Adulthood
Release Date: 2008
Writer: Noel Clarke
Director: Noel Clarke

Cast:
Noel Clarke: Sam
Adam Deacon: Jay
Scarlett Alice Johnson: Lexi
Jacob Anderson: Omen
Ben Drew: Dabs
Danny Dyer: Hayden
Femi Oyeniran: Moony
Shanika Warren-Markland: Kayla
Red Madrell: Alisa
Nathan Constance: Ike
Cornell John: Uncle Curtis

Run-Time: 105 mins.
Studio: Cipher/Limelight Films

Set against the thumping beats of the U.K. hip-hop music known as grime, this 2008 English import traces the steps of a newly released convict and the delicate path he must walk as he tries to negotiate the boundaries between adolescence and adulthood.

As the film opens, Sam Peel (Clarke) has just finished serving a six-year jail sentence for murder.

No sooner than is he released, Sam discovers that a surviving relative of his victim is out for blood and has vowed that he won’t survive the day.

The film then follows Sam through the streets of West London, as he encounters those who have been affected by his actions. Some are trying to move on, while some seem doomed to learn the lessons that Sam has already learned.

The ultimate goal, it seems, is for Sam to convince those who are following his path to break from it and to turn away from violence. That decision is literally hammered home in the film’s final scene

That external struggle is mirrored by Sam’s own internal fight over his crime, and his struggle to find his place in an outside world that has moved on without him.

A sequel to 2006’s “Kidulthood,” the film has a raw immediacy, even if its performances are sometimes uneven. ”

Adulthood’s” subject matter should be immediately identifiable to any English moviegoer — headlines about gang violence and knife crime are a staple of the UK press. Though, at times, it seems as if the violence is overplayed either in the name of proving the film’s authenticity or as a heavy-handed object lesson.

Throughout, Clark remains “Adulthood’s” center of gravity. His eyes seem bottomless and he can convey even the most subtle of emotions with a glance.

American viewers may find the accents occasionally impenetreable. But Clark’s film strikes me as a reasonably authentic document of what it’s like growing up in the tower blocks (public housing to us Yanks) that dominate the London skyline.