Families are complicated enough without everyone coming home at the same time. In Adult Children, an unexpected family reunion brings a group of adult siblings back under one roof, each carrying their own baggage and trying to figure out what comes next. The film recently screened at the Vashon Island Film Festival.

Written by Annika Marks and directed by Rich Newey, Adult Children follows the family as each sibling deals with their own problems. Morgan (Ella Rubin), a sheltered 17-year-old, is trying to write her college entrance essay and figure out her next move. Her much older half-brother Josh (Thomas Sadoski) has returned home following a relapse and is waiting to enter treatment. With their parents preparing to leave for a European vacation, Morgan’s older half-siblings Lisa (Betsy Brandt) and Dahlia (Aya Cash) arrive to help keep an eye on Josh. Before long, the family is dealing with much more than who is going to look after whom.

A Family Story With Some History Behind It

The story has a personal connection to Marks, who explained during the Vashon Q&A that it was loosely inspired by her own family. She is the oldest of four and was interested in the idea of a child growing up alongside siblings who had experienced a very different version of the same family.

She also wanted to revisit the coming-of-age movies she loved growing up, particularly the John Hughes films of the 1980s. The goal was to capture some of that nostalgic feeling “without the misogyny.”

There’s a family connection behind Adult Children, too. Marks and Newey are married, and this is their second feature together. During the Vashon Q&A, they joked that after making their first film they said they would never do it again. Then they did.

That collaboration also came in handy when the production ran into the sort of problem that comes with making an independent film. The filmmakers didn’t have enough money to shoot the coverage they wanted for a scene in a car. Rather than spend money they didn’t have, they changed the blocking and had Josh jump into the back seat mid-scene.

The solution worked better than they expected. Newey said having Josh in the back seat actually fit what the character was going through, and he couldn’t imagine shooting the scene the original way now.

Newey also recalled a moment when Morgan walks across the grass and picks up a dandelion. It wasn’t scripted, but the filmmakers kept it. Later, when a birthday scene wasn’t working, they found a way to connect the two images, turning the dandelion into an unexpected part of the scene.

Finding Morgan

The movie has a strong cast, from Sadoski and Brandt to Cash, Rogers and Rubin. They feel like a family pretty quickly, with plenty of affection mixed in with old baggage that comes with knowing someone for most of their lives. The film also gets into addiction, sex, health and some of the messier parts of being an adult.

The search for Morgan was a long one. Marks said she had originally pictured the character as someone who could easily fade into the background. Then Ella Rubin auditioned. Marks initially thought she was “way too beautiful” for the part, but the more she saw her, the more she realized Rubin was right for Morgan. The casting also changed the way Marks saw the character. Everyone else could see something in Morgan that Morgan couldn’t quite see in herself.

At the Vashon Q&A, Marks revealed just how extensive the search for Morgan had been. Casting director Brittany Ward read roughly 600 young actresses, and the filmmakers watched more than 100 audition tapes before landing on Rubin.

The film itself took years to reach the screen. Marks began writing it around 2019 with the intention of making an independent feature with Newey. COVID put those plans on hold, and the screenplay was eventually developed as a possible television series. When that version didn’t move forward, Marks regained the rights and returned to the original film. They finally shot Adult Children in 2023, primarily in Dixon, Illinois, a small town about 90 minutes southwest of Chicago.

For Marks and Newey, getting Adult Children to the screen took several years, a pandemic, a detour into television and a second feature together. They also managed to stay married through it all. At Vashon, they joked about whether they would make a third movie together. Judging by the way they talked about this one, they haven’t completely ruled it out.