Young Adult is one of those movies that some people will love and some will hate, while others will only be able to decide if they love it or hate it once it concludes. It is more of a polarizing movie than most. People will remember this movie more than they would an average $10 million budget dramedy. This is particularly true for many Generation Xers who can identify with its lead character Mavis (Charlize Theron – Monster, North Country), a woman approaching 40 who is going through a major midlife identity crisis.
Charlize Theron had a very average career and was considered an average actress until 2003. Then she took on the role of a prostitute turned serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster, eliminating every component of her physical beauty en route to earning the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She then earned another nomination for 2005’s North Country and has been one of the most sought-after and highly regarded actresses since. Unfortunately, most of the movies she made between 2005-2010 failed at the box office and with the critics. These films included Battle in Seattle, Aeon Flux, and Sleepwalking. 2008’s Hancock was a box office success because of Will Smith. Anybody could have been cast as his opposite, and the movie would have earned just as much money. Theron all but disappeared in 2008, 2009, and 2010. If you didn’t look carefully, you would have thought she had entirely left the profession for those three years.
But Theron blasted back onto the screen with Young Adult as if she was never away. The trailer for the movie was enough to perk at least the interest of her most casual fan. Theron plays Mavis Gary, a successful writer of teen literature who returns from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to her hometown of Mercury, Minnesota, to win back her high school sweetheart, the married Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson – Little Children, Hard Candy). Her motivation? She is sent a picture of Buddy and his wife Beth’s (Elizabeth Reaser – Twilight, The Family Stone) newborn baby and is invited to the baby shower.
The image of the baby causes Mavis to reevaluate her life, and she doesn’t like what she sees. She is approaching 40. She is single. She lives in a dirty apartment. She is an alcoholic. She has had some success as a writer but is in a highly prolonged period of writer’s block. She is unstable. She is convinced that Buddy and Beth’s baby should be hers and Buddy’s. She is confident she can doll herself up and convince Buddy to leave Beth. However, the biggest problem with her plan is that Buddy is happily married. That this is her goal is enough to make Mavis an unlikable character. But she is also crass, crude, and intentionally and unintentionally mean at various points early in this movie. It was director Jason Reitman’s (Up in the Air, Juno) goal to present her as a character we can either cheer against or dislike. He and Theron did a superb job doing this.
Matt (Patton Oswalt – Big Fan, The Informant), a high school classmate of Mavis and Buddy, is there to thwart her plans. While Matt recognizes the beautiful Mavis as soon as she returns home, the far more popular Mavis only remembers Matt as “The Hate Crime Guy.” Matt was severely beaten in high school by classmates who thought he was gay. Still suffering physical wounds from that incident (he walks around with a severe limp), and his emotional wounds are far worse. He’s fat. He’s broke. He spends his nights playing with toys in his garage (not like motorcycles, but like real toys). He lives with his sister. As a result of being an outcast, Matt has observed much. He can see when a person’s motives aren’t what they seem to be, so he can quickly see that Mavis isn’t simply “home” to attend the baby shower. Matt serves as the conscious of the movie as he is the only one who sees Mavis’s exact motives. He does his best to keep Mavis from destroying a perfectly happy marriage. He becomes more of a central character as the movie goes along.
The movie is both a comedy and a drama. There are not a lot of laughs, and never are they bellyaching, yet there are just enough of them, and they come at the right time to keep this movie from being a complete downer. The performances were top-notch on every level. There was a fear that Theron could have overacted and made Mavis too unlikeable, but that didn’t occur. Instead, we go back and forth between not liking her, feeling sorry for her, hoping for her, and rooting against her. We hinge on her every move, wondering if she will do something mean-spirited next or if she’s going to say or do something that makes us feel so awkward that we have to shift positions in our chairs.
**Spoiler**
Wilson was fantastic in this movie. Far too often is this actor portrayed as a good guy at the start of the film, only to learn that his character has a much darker side than we imagined. This was true in Hard Candy, Insidious, Little Children, and The Ledge. I kept waiting for the turn of the highly likable Buddy. Buddy loves his wife, but how could any man or woman with the looks of Charlize Theron throw herself all over him, right? Buddy’s wife was pretty, but Theron’s Mavis was hot. Perhaps Wilson was the perfect choice for this role. Buddy was stronger than any of Wilson’s other characters mentioned above. As a result, as the movie neared its climax, I found myself cheering for Buddy and hoping that he would prove to be the stand-up guy he was being developed as.
The main characters in this movie are all flawed. While most of the attention is paid to the stories of Mavis and Matt, it is evident that the characters could be better. It was rewarding to me to see Buddy turning down the advances of Mavis because of the love he had for his wife. We all know that a one-night stand is much easier to conceal than an external affair, and if something were to happen between Mavis and Buddy, it would have led to the latter. That said, Buddy resisted Mavis’s advances because of his devotion to his marriage rather than the risk of being caught.
** End Spoiler
Anybody who feels at least a little bit insecure about themselves or their identity will find comfort in this movie. They will see that they are not alone and that you can be beautiful, successful, rich, and famous and still feel like your life is spiraling out of control. What others perceive you to be is not what you are. What you perceive yourself to be is a much better indicator.
Plot 9/10
Character Development 9.5/10
Character Chemistry 9.5/10
Acting 10/10
Screenplay 8/10
Directing 8/10
Cinematography 7/10
Sound 7/10
Hook and Reel 8.5/10
Universal Relevance 8.5/10
85%
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