Young Adult

Late-thirties, hard-drinking writer Mavis Gary has ghost authored several young adult novels, but her life in Minneapolis is hardly stable. Although she escaped her hometown years ago, a brief contact with her old high school boyfriend Buddy Slade (now married and a newborn father) gives her a sudden epiphany that they're truly meant to be together, so on a lark she returns home despite her clear disdain for everything and everyone there. Upon her return, she finds an unexpected confidant in Matt Freehauf, a former high school classmate who was once erroneously the victim of a hate crime. A character study of a character you really wouldn't want to know, this is interesting early on and funny in spots, but the longer it goes on the clearer it becomes that there isn't any real poignancy or insight, nor does there seem to be a true learning curve for the central character. Theron fearlessly brings this deeply flawed protagonist to life, but her toxic personality and delusional single-mindedness make it difficult to accompany her on her journey, and despite some good supporting work from Oswalt it all feels bathed in negativity. **

This film is highly recommended.

Finally a holiday movie comes along that dares to ask, " Can a high school prom queen steal her happily married ex-boyfriend from his wife and newborn child and find true love? " From the team that brought us the classic comedy, Juno, comes the wickedly entertaining, and to some, offensive Young Adult.

Directed by Jason Reitman and written by Diablo Cody, this dark comedy explores the aspirations of a beautiful, vain, and selfish woman as she schemes to breakup a marriage and reclaim her former sweetheart, Buddy. Now divorced, Mavis Gary ( Charlize Theron ), a ghostwriter of teen literature conveniently found in the YA section of bookstores everywhere, has never grown up and never had the life she felt destined to have. ( After all, she was voted Best Hair in her high school yearbook! ) Her life is in ruins, an eternal victim of herself. She decides to return to her small hometown hoping to snare her former sweetheart ( nicely downplayed by Patrick Wilson ) and with that in mind, live some of the glories of her past life. As Mavis mentions in one scene, "Love conquers all. "Haven't you seen The Graduate? " She lives in a fantasy world, clouded by booze.

Giving her a reality check about her plans is a dweeb from the past, Matt Freehauf ( Patton Oswalt ), whom Mavis meets at a local bar. She doesn't so much rekindle their friendship as she never had time for him before, just not in her league back then. "Oh, you're that hate crime guy," she says when they meet. Insensitive, yes. That's Mavis, and yes, Matt was permanently injured in a gay hate crime during his senior year, although he wasn't gay at all. Shades of irony! ( Not that there's anything wrong with that, yada, yada!) Alcohol (and there's plenty in use when Mavis is around ) brings these two lost souls together, that and Mavis' far- fetched dreaming.

Theron has the difficult role of making such a repulsive and mean-spirited woman, if not likable, at least, tolerable. She never tries to ingratiate herself. Instead, she depicts a mean girl caught in the throngs of arrested development and expects the movie audience to deal with it. Her acting choices work beautifully inside and out. Theron uses her expressive beauty and sexual allure to hide Mavis' twisted and unpleasant traits. Hopefully, this honest and compelling performance won't turn off Academy voters due to its nasty portrayal of its anti-heroine. It's a wonderful job of acting.

Oswalt gives a fully dimensional comic portrait of a small town loser type with bigger dreams. He's living with his sister. He's alone. He's Mavis' conscience and he's working overtime. He's the voice of reason ( and the sensible voice of the movie audience as well. ). Oswalt plays his character as an endearing slug, a man-child full of sage advice and bitter disappointment. It is a finely honed comic performance.

Cleverly scripted, Young Adult is filled with smart one-liners that advance the action and are keeping with their flawed characters. Yet the film carries with it a more serious tone, not the laugh-a-minute movie one would suspect from the trailer. The characters and their situations verge on the real with the comically surreal. In an uncomfortable but pivotal scene, Mavis addresses Buddy's married life with consoling words and advice that " we can beat this thing together" and leave his KenTacoHut world behind. Cody's sharply observed and cynical view of small town life is imbued in her characters and may be distasteful to some moviegoers, although I found this film quite amusing and droll. The only objection to the film was in two of the film's final scenes ( which were effectively done but inaccurate to the characters' true motivations and actions).

Reitman is again drawn to damaged characters in his leading roles as he had successfully done with films like Juno and Up in the Air. He is relentless in his ability to make such complicated people completely fascinating as they free fall into despair. He makes their journey filled with ironic and satirical possibilities, making the negative positively comic in tone.

Young Adult resists the sweet rosy side of life. It humorously embraces the sad fatalistic notion of our everyday existence, supplanting upbeat and unattainable desires with a refreshingly downbeat sensibility. And that's seems very grown-up to me. GRADE: B+

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Without an iota of irony, Charlize Theron finally uses her intimidating beauty for pure Machiavellian evil, and the results are fortuitous in this dark-hued 2011 comedy, the latest collaboration of director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody ("Juno"). She's absolutely spot-on terrific playing Mavis Gary, the condescending, hateful high school girl who comes back to Mercury, her podunk hometown nearly two decades later. Mavis is no Blanche Dubois-type character whose ladylike beauty has faded into a gauzy romantic delusion. No, Mavis is still one hot babe and very much the complete narcissist she was as a teenager, emotionally stunted despite her relative worldliness having moved to Minneapolis to become a ghostwriter of a series of teen novels.

It's not surprising she finds success writing for an adolescent audience since she still defines her life with teenage-level priorities and fantasies. As she has proved with "Juno", Cody is thoroughly fluent with this perspective, but the twist is that this time, it's coming from a jaded 37-year-old woman. Even though Mavis is a divorcée who lives in a high-rise apartment with a toy dog and can easily get any man she wants, she is triggered by a birth announcement email she receives from her high school sweetheart Buddy Slade and becomes fixated on getting him back all these years later. It doesn't matter that he's happily married and perfectly content living in Mercury. She concocts a scheme to make herself so alluring that he will want to run away with her. Normally, this would be an excuse for broad comedy machinations, but Theron is so gorgeous that it makes her shameless attempts at seduction all the more edgily desperate.

It's a narrowly developed plot for sure, but surprisingly, what enriches the proceedings is the unexpected relationship Mavis develops with Matt Freehauf, a sad-sack former classmate whose sole claim to notoriety was being the victim of a hate crime when he was beaten up and left for dead by a group of jocks who assumed he was gay. He has been left crippled, living in Mercury with his sister making his own home-brewed bourbon and putting together mix-and-match action figures. That Mavis and Matt connect is all the more intriguing since they were at opposite ends of the social spectrum back in school, and their present-day bond is also fueled by her obvious alcoholism, a point that is overlooked by her befuddled parents who wish to think of Mavis as the flawless pretty daughter of their own deluded fantasies. The story evolves in the direction you would expect but not before certain revelations come to light in a tortuous scene at the baby-naming party Buddy and his sensible wife Beth have with all their relatives and close friends in attendance.

Beyond Theron's fearless work and intentionally deadpan line delivery, there is comedian Patton Oswalt's surprisingly affecting performance as Matt. I only know him from his recurring role as a comical sad-sack on the sitcom "King of Queens", so it's surprising to see the amount of texture he brings to this role. As Buddy, Patrick Wilson once again plays the sought-after himbo, but this time, his character's unshaven, small-town modesty comes across as more contrite with his character's feelings toward Mavis left quite elliptical. Elizabeth Reaser ("Sweet Land") isn't given that much to do as Beth, probably by intention, but Collette Wolf has a few impactful moments as Matt's insulated sister still idolizing Mavis after all these years. As he showed with "Juno" and "Up in the Air", Reitman shows a deft hand with actors playing flawed characters who try to manipulate their circumstances but fall short of their vaunted expectations.

These kind of stories about loosers dont get made a lot. NOT a crowd pleaser. Dont think for a second you will get to see Charlize Theron in any kind of hot or glamorous scenes. She plays a character that is dead inside. Mentally scarred for life. But she is unaware of it. She is about to find out though when she revisits her old highschool friends.

Some movies are simply a kick in my gut. This is one of those. I would not recommend it to any of my friends who want to be entertained. BUT if one wants to see a really true to life story about PAIN and ISOLATION then this is the movie for you...

"Enjoy..."

This is one of those films you read about and really look forward to; but, once seen, you realize that, while good, it's not quite worthy of the build up.

Charlize Theron is quite good and makes the most of the script she has to work with. As always, hers eyes, facial expression and body language all help her bring life to the role.

Patton Oswalt also does a star turn as a bit of conscience for Charlize's character.

The story is well told, albeit a bit of a stretch. For someone reaching back to her past for a lost love, Charlize's character is quite believable; it's her long ago beau, Patrick Wilson, that's not quite up to snuff. Given that these two play off each other for a great deal of the film, it would be nicer to have had a better performer opposite her.

That said, it's worth watching, though probably a bit depressing for many viewers.