I was making an observation not seeking to insult anyone. I realize everyone lives their life on their own schedule. But if you’re “coming of age” in your thirties, you need to realize you’re doing it later than most other people.
Can always look at the movie that “The Big Chill” ripped off, “The Return of the Secaucus Seven.”
Yeah. That’s the reason the OP is looking for stuff about this happening while in one’s thirties. 'Cause, you know, it typically happens during your teens / early twenties, right?
To answer the question though, how about “Independence Day” from 1983? It has Kathleen Quinlan and David Keith. I liked it.
13 Going on 30 was the most obvious film that came to mind. Jennifer Garner plays a 13-year-old who time travels into her 30-year-old self and doesn’t like who she’s become.
In The Last Kiss, Zach Braff plays a guy who is turning 30 and has trouble dealing with “adult” responsibilities.
Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion and Grosse Pointe Blank both deal with the inevitable fallout from attending one’s 10-year high school reunion.
I think many suggestions have wandered out of the “coming of age” genre. They’re more like “recognition of age” stories. When a character is married, has two kids, owns a house, and has their own business, they’re not coming of age. They’re not passing a milestone to come of age - they’re realizing they’ve passed the milestones and have come of age. You can make an interesting story out of this but it’s not a coming of age story.
The exceptions - Failure to Launch, Clerks II, Young Adult, The Last Kiss, Big Daddy, Laggies - where you have a character in their thirties having a genuine coming of age experience all have that element I mentioned above of it being a delayed experience.
I disagree, because I think that there are “coming of age” experiences appropriate for each age we enter, and I think some of these movies are about coming to realizations about what it means to be in your 30’s. How is a “coming of age” not a “recognition of age”, whatever that age might be?
I was going to recommend Grosse Pointe Blank. I think it fits pretty well.
In that case, I don’t think this thread is about coming of age. From the OP:
About a Boy, which makes sense when you realize the film’s title actually refers to Hugh Grant’s character, not Toni Collette’s bratty kid.
“Beautiful Girls” (the Timothy Hutton storyline) was the first thing that came to mind. But it seems these are more “late 20’s” than 30 year olds.
I think “Juno”, the Jennifer Garner / Jason Batemen story is about their “moving forward” in their lives.
Unless you’re really looking forward to smashing your TV in disgust, I would recommend not watching The Last Kiss. Braff’s smug jackassery is turned up to 11 and the way he acts during the movie will make your skin crawl.
Yeah, agreed, but…Rachel Bilson boobies!
Wasn’t she wearing a very obvious flesh-colored bra?
Hal Hartley’s Unbelievable Truth and Trust hit me at just the right time in my life to resonate with the 20/30-something characters. The handwavey theme of “you want the simplicity of youth, but look at all of this adult shit that needs sorting out” fits the thread purpose I think.
FWIW I really don’t care if people think transitions should occur in your teens, or 20s or 30s or if they don’t think they should occur at all. My goal was to find media that discusses these transitions that occur in many people, not to present them as a formula everyone has to follow.
I’ve been reading some threads on another board (yes I visit another board, but she means nothing to me) and I saw some threads about the hardest or most interesting part about transitioning to becoming an adult. The replies are usually along the lines of what I wrote in my OP. Themes come up like:
- Your body no longer works well by default. You have to put more and more effort into your health to feel ok. You can’t take your health for granted or feel invulnerable anymore.
- You tend to become more cautious and risk adverse in many ways
- The idealism of youth gets tempered and you become more concerned with what is directly in front of you and less with the world at large
- You realize you are not special or influential, you are a replaceable cog in a machine far bigger than yourself
- You have kids, and your life stops being totally about you
About Schmidt was a good movie that touched on some of these themes and the main character was in his 60s.
If you want to see a guy in a dead-end job looking at the wrong side of thirty as he awkwardly starts dating – and then marries, and then excitedly buys a house with, and then struggles to make car payments alongside – someone his own age, who (a) tells him to put aside his dreams in favor of steady work, especially with the baby on the way; but then she (b) realizes, yeah, okay, he should give it one last shot…
…I’m just saying you could do a lot worse than ROCKY and ROCKY II, is all. 
To stretch the OP’s request, let me add that MAGNUM PI would draw attention to how our hero acted like an overgrown frat boy – living rent-free out of one room at some guy’s beach house, borrowing the car to get cold beers for his college-style fridge if Detroit is playing Boston, picking up chicks like a young single guy in shorty-shorts and a mismatched tank top and a baseball cap – doing stuff that makes sense for someone in his early twenties, but doesn’t quite fit a decorated military officer in his thirties using long experience and valuable contacts as a private investigator.
Point being, he woke up one morning and realized he hadn’t had a “twenties”: ten years ago, he was deciding whether to leave a man behind in Vietnam. And so he’s deliberately making up for lost time: he’ll get to where he’s ready to settle down and start a family – and get back into uniform, to pick up where he left off – but for now, he’s a wisecracking eyebrow-waggler adding to his unpaid tab at the nightclub his more downbeat buddy runs like, y’know, a grown man in his thirties.