Adult Supervision (Imagine Festival 2026) Distressing Social Commentary on Parenthood

Alex Schulman’s directorial debut channels the spirit of fellow Swedish director Ruben Ostlund, who he had worked with on Triangle of Sadness, a similar tale of human isolation leading to chaos. While the film’s title literally translates to ‘Once in the Archipelago’, it’s English language title of Adult Supervision more effectively communicates what the film is about. The literal title does accurately describe the set-up of a school trip to Klippvik that requires three parents to attend in place of any teachers, for reasons never explained. Three fathers – Bill, Pontus and Bobo – volunteer but once on the trip, what initially starts as an awkward comedy of three men over their heads quickly becomes a distressingly uncomfortable tragedy.

From the first minute, the film sits in seemingly never-ending awkwardness and tension. As the opening credits play, we hear a conversation between a mother and a teacher about female students feeling awkward showering after PE. No resolution is ultimately provided for this issue as the rest of the group parent-teacher continues, and this is the attitude that permeates the film – adults may have power over their children, whether as a parent or teacher, but they don’t always have the answer to their problems.

This theme is given a specific focus once the trip begins as we see how helpless the three adults are to stop children bullying each other. Like in the recent television adaptation of Carrie, we see how this helplessness comes from a lack of willingness as much as inability to intervene. The three dads have clearly differing approaches to parenting – Bill taking the ‘nice’ and gentle approach; Pontus appearing distant and attempting to be a ‘cool dad’; and Bobo being far more assertive with his authority, bordering on aggressive. The five leaders of the camp are absent through most of the film and resemble the sort of camp councillors typically picked off in a Friday the 13^thfilm, more interested in having a fun time than actually looking after the children.

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The fathers’ comment on the group leaders that they are ‘children looking after children’ highlights how power shifts throughout the film – who is in charge isn’t the same as who has control, which for the most part seem to be the children themselves. None of the fathers appear to know anything about the dynamics of the class their children are in, causing problems when they attempt to intervene with what they perceive as bullying. How they treat their own child within their own home proves incompatible when amongst other children. The increasing conflict between the fathers creates one between them and the children too, subtly showing how the children are influenced by how adults behave as the tensions within the class itself escalate beyond the adult’s control.

This gradual escalation comes through scenes of small moments of social behaviour that are amplified by the nature of a school trip where every interaction is being observed by adult and child alike. Bill is advised by the other dads that he has to ‘just be there’ as a father, but their aim to ‘keep an eye on things’ ignores how the children are also watching their behaviours. The film smartly incorporates children’s increasing fixation with mobile phone technology by adding the ability to record and quietly contact their parents as an extra level of scrutiny for the three fathers. The parent group chat is referred to as an existential threat, as reports of things going wrong on the trip lead to demands as to what the fathers are doing to stop it. When cinema so often feels clunky incorporating modern technology, Adult Supervision feels refreshing by focusing on how it is used and the behaviours it creates.

The film is an increasingly excruciating experience with naturalistic performances keeping the drama grounded. Gustaf Skarsgard lives up to his family name in his portrayal of Bill, who is so pathetic that he can’t even kill an already dying fish but is driven by a desire to do right. His interactions with his daughter and bullied child Kenneth reveal a lot about his character before we learn about his trauma that he increasingly projects onto them. Schulman’s experience as an actor clearly informs his directing and writing taking what could be a tired moral tale and making it feel all too painfully real. The film’s conclusion firmly puts it alongside Lord of the Flies as a tale of how horrendous children can be when left to their own devices, but with the extra sting that it seems nothing would change even with adults present.

MIKE’S ARCHIVE – ADULT SUPERVISION