I'm Really Feelin...Noel Clarke

I stayed up in the early hours watching Kidulthood [again], as I received Adulthood in the post from Play yesterday and decided to watch them both back to back. It had been a while since I'd seen Kidulthood and wanted to get familiar again with the characters and the story. I missed Adulthood in the cinema but would have been adding it to the DVD collection at some point, which was now.

I honestly think that any American who watches it won't have a bloody clue as to what is going on with regard to the dialogue. I don't use it a whole lot but I pretty much understand London street slang/UK Ebonics or whatever the hell you wanna call it so for me it was a breeze. I thought if I recommended these films to my US friends would they need to use the subtitles feature on the DVD? Probably, if they have a problem understanding people from Manchester, Birmingham and Scotland, then they are going to have a hell of a hard time understanding kids from London.

Noel Clarke is a very talented [and fine, yet very married] 33 year old actor, writer, director and producer. I really love the grit and honesty he brings to the screen in both movies, although the acting as a whole improves greatly in the sequel. He rarely leaves anything to the imagination on screen or when it comes to the dialogue. I've seen a lot of movies and compared to the US 'street' films produced I've not seen any come close, gritty or real compared to his writing and directing credited movies.
People overseas seem to have a one track view of London as being very civilised, populated by well educated and well spoken individuals. It couldn't be further from the truth and some of these characters in the film are very representative of some 'bad man' wannabe youths in good ol' London town. A town where the girls are slack and will sleep with a ton of men with a quickness. White girls adopting some broken down Ebonics laced dialect. And a bunch of youths whose national dress seems to involve a hoody or pants slung down below their buttocks, wielding weapons, selling, robbing and cussing anyone who as so much dares to look at them the wrong way. God forbid if you're from SE15 and you and your 'manz dem' decide to venture into the wrong area [endz] in SW9 you might end up beat up, maimed or worst still, dead.

Yes it all goes on here, we have our fair share of bullshit with the 'new generation' of youths and all the troubles that come with it and these films depict a handful of characters who unfortunately are representative of inner city London life for a lot of kids growing up. Don't get me wrong there are those keeping their head down and out of trouble [I was one of them] but whether you were brought up in the suburban areas or a crime infested council estate chances are you were pretty much close in association to some of these characters and knew of them whether you were involved in that lifestyle or not.

If you haven't and want to see a film depict teen London life in a more real way that hasn't been done before then check out Kidulthood and Adulthood. Listen closely and pay attention if you're not used to hearing our 'street' slang. There's sex, drugs, violence and blatant disrespect, but the film does serve a purpose and deliver a message.

Major props to Mr Clarke [who also stars in the film as Sam], I definitely look forward to his future projects coming and will be paying close attention to this young man's career going forward. Doghouse will most certainly get a look in from me because it's also starring in my East London white boy geezer crush Danny Dyer [who also has a bit part in Adulthood]. Sorry, you can't get more Canning Town than Danny 'Double D' Dyer.

You can check out his filmography on IMDB

Here is the Kidulthood and Adulthood trailers. Only watch the Adulthood trailer if you don't mind knowing what happened in the first movie as there maybe some spoilers with regard to the ending of Kidulthood.

Kidulthood

Adulthood