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'Young Adult' review

Charlize Theron as a high school mean girl all grown up, and meaner than ever

By Geoff Berkshire

Metromix
December 8, 2011

Critic's Rating:

Patrick Wilson and Charlize Theron (Credit: Paramount)

Young Adult

Running time:: 94 minutes

Rated:: R

Cast:

Charlize Theron -

Mavis Gary

Patton Oswalt -

Matt Freehauf

Patrick Wilson -

Buddy Slade

Elizabeth Reaser -

Beth Slade

Jill Eikenberry -

Hedda Gary

See full cast

Director:: Jason Reitman

Official Movie Web Site:: http://www.youngadultmovie.com/

Overall User Rating:: (1 rating)

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Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) is pretty, popular and perfect…at least in her head. A closer look at the former high school hotshot reveals a thirtysomething ghost writer for a struggling series of young adult books wasting away in an alcoholic haze of one night stands and reality TV marathons. When she discovers her teenage sweetheart (Patrick Wilson) just had a baby with his wife (Elizabeth Reaser), Mavis decides to head back to her hometown and “rescue” him from a suffocating suburban life. The only person she lets in on her twisted plan is lifelong geek Matt Fruehauf (Patton Oswalt), who still harbors a crush on the would be homewrecker.

The buzz: Director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody instantly became Hollywood cool kids with the release of 2007’s “Juno.” He was nominated for an Oscar, and she won one. Reitman followed up with another Oscar favorite, “Up in the Air,” while Cody stumbled a bit with the teen horror flop “Jennifer’s Body” and three seasons of Showtime’s ratings-challenged “United States of Tara.” Now they’re back together for another original story driven by a unique (anti-)heroine.

The verdict: At its worst, “Young Adult” plays like an overly self-conscious attempt to prove Reitman and Cody can make a film that’s as cold and cynical as “Juno” was warm and joyful. But what really sinks this disappointing reunion is a narrative as stunted as Mavis’ emotional development. Every character’s range of behavior is limited to exactly what’s needed for the film to make its points about Mavis, which would be more understandable if we were experiencing the action from her point of view. There’s never much doubt that Mavis is pathetic at best, destructively delusional at worst, and “Young Adult” falls into a repetitive rut in tracking her narcissism-fueled mental breakdown.

The problem isn’t that she’s an entirely unsympathetic character, it’s that she’s never a particularly interesting character. Even with Theron’s admirable efforts to fill in the gaps, Mavis remains a concept—some people never mature beyond high school—stretched beyond the breaking point. There’s no rooting interest in watching her achieve her demented goals, but there’s also little at stake in the damage she does to herself and others. Only Oswalt’s nice-guy-who-finished-last is permitted some depth within the script’s narrow field of vision, and even then only in glimpses. Almost literally neutered from a severe case of high school bullying, Matt suffers his own bad brand of arrested development. In some other movie he and Mavis would be nerd/dreamgirl soul mates. But despite Theron and Oswalt’s natural chemistry, their characters’ addict-enabler relationship is a toxic combination impossible to romanticize.

If everything from Mavis’ maniacal behavior to her futile friendship with Matt to the happily unhappy ending is supposed to add up to a hollow subversion of genre conventions, then “Young Adult” works fine. But just because we don’t like Mavis, doesn’t mean we don’t need a reason to care about watching her self-destruct.

Did you know? J.K. Simmons has appeared in all four of Reitman’s films, beginning with “Thank You For Smoking.” He turns up here in a voiceover role as Mavis’ editor.

Follow Metromix's Geoff Berkshire on Twitter: @geoffberkshire