Adult World

Adult World is more aggravating than endearing, although there's an interesting idea buried beneath all the cutesy plot details.

Adult World does have some smart, funny and wincingly painful things to say about the desire to make art vs. the desire to be famous for it.

Roberts is completely over-the-top here, her frantic, unfunny performance serving only to highlight Cusack's caginess and restraint.

"Adult World" is a coming-of-age story in which the starting age seems to be approximately 9. As a result, it just doesn't work.

It's packed with independent-film cliches, yet director Scott Coffey manages to rise above them, thanks largely to the performances of Emma Roberts and John Cusack.

Never quite fully delivers much more than yet another oh-poor-me take on post-collegiate struggles in the cold, cruel 21st Century.

There is potentially a good movie bubbling under the surface in the interaction between Amy and Rat and especially in the hinted-at desperation of her struggle to make a success of her life, but this is overtaken by the tedious melodramatic whining.

Cusack is fabulously droll as the reluctant mentor, while Armando Riesco delivers a touchingly off-kilter performance as the drag queen who also provides the heroine with lessons in life.

Completely stealing the show and delivering my favorite supporting turn of the year so far is Armando Riesco.

Adult World goes all kinds of satisfying places and the lowercase niceties begin with knowing how to use Emma Roberts' eyes, and their bright, darting gaze, which can flick from irritation to consternation to fury just like one-two-three.

It is genuinely funny and surprisingly touching by the end, which is more than can be said for most of Hollywood's efforts of late.

The movie is rated R, yet sensitive 12-year-old girls and the boys scared to talk to them probably represent the ideal audience for this wan coming-of-age sitcom in feature-film drag.