Young Adult

For me, 2011's YOUNG ADULT was a very frustrating experience.  Something I wanted to really appreciate, but was repeatedly thwarted.  Writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman (re-teaming after JUNO) brought across so much truth, but within a movie that was highly caricatured and contrived.  I guess there are only so many ways to tell a story about arrested development.  Maybe this theme peaked in the 1990s with all those confused post undergrad movies.  Time has passed and now we're getting confused mid-ager movies, many with a protagonist who is trying to relive the past, or maybe never left it.

Charlize Theron plays Mavis, a pushing 40 alcoholic who ghost writes a series of novels aimed at young adults.  Divorced and living in Minneapolis, she decides to return to her hometown and rekindle her relationship with high school sweetheart Buddy (Patrick Wilson) who is now married and just became a father. Mavis truly believes she is on some noble mission, where surely her old beau will see he made some mistakes and will drop everything for her.  Is she mentally ill as well? Is there any self awareness? Will it arrive too late?

I can't fault Reitman.  He's a good director with a decent eye for visuals.  He lets his actors breathe.  The main issue here is Diablo's script.  Disappointingly shallow.  It is dour and conflicted, at least to me.  I'm not sure if she cares about Mavis any more than the audience is supposed to.  Much of the scenario is played for dark humor, attempting to eschew the standard heart thumping moments, even in the expected Big Confrontation Scenes. The film tries to be satiric, but sometimes it feels too written and self conscious, as when Buddy describes his job and daily lunches with his father.  He almost becomes a New Yorker cartoon panel for a moment, not at all believable for his character.

YOUNG ADULT's best moments belong to Mavis and Matt (Patton Oswalt), another high school classmate who became disabled after he was beaten down by the BMOCs who thought he was a homosexual.  Matt's character is "The Male Friend", a sounding board for Mavis and her frustrations.  He is entirely disapproving of her evil quest, but the pair bond over copious amounts of alcohol, some of which Matt distills in the garage of the house he shares with his sister, Sandra (Collette Wolfe), who still admires Mavis.  Theron and Oswalt have many fine moments despite the cliches of everything they do and say.  I barely believed their relationship, but they still give the movie some life, which is sorely lacking elsewhere.  Mavis' scenes with her estranged parents make that case.

I admired the film's decision not to end things on a falsely hopeful note, but the final ten to fifteen minutes or so are kinda odd.  I wasn't sure if Cody was being ironic or caustic, or if the speech delivered by Sandra was a true bit of empowerment for Mavis.  If so, how defeatist. Maybe the beautiful but screwed up former prom queen will never quite get it.  YOUNG ADULT left me with more questions than answers, but that's life, eh?