Growing up a "Young Adult"

Young Adult @ Arclight Hollywood

The Movie: 4 of 5 Kernels

This caustic tale of a delusional prom queen returned home to save her high school flame from happy matrimony will leaving you laughing and pondering.

The Pop: 4 of 5 Kernels

Diet Coke, Popcorn, plus M&M’s.

The Film

            Jason Reitman established himself as a thoughtful filmmaker with some real insight to the suburban realities that the average American faces. The last time he teamed with Diablo Cody, Juno showed us a thoughtful quirky side of teen pregnancy and the malaise surrounding suburbia and high school. Cody is definitely more an adolescent; so far all of her films have really focused on the varying social mechanics of being a teenage girl, this latest film seems especially personal and insightful into a woman who’s maybe ready to grow up, even if that’s Cody and not her protagonist.

            The film is about Mavis (Theron), a beautiful deadbeat who would fit right into a Bukowski novel. She drifts along chugging diet coke, clinging to her grand self-image, the one she applies with beauty products, and spirals deeper into alcoholism. Mavis has zero regrets though; she’s unable to be truly critical of her own life, lest her whole shell crumbles. Mavis learns that her high-school boyfriend just had a baby; she sees the notice as a sign that he needs to be saved from matrimony and fatherhood. She returns to her hometown and desperately tries to reconnect with him, while there she runs into a classmate she ignored in high school, Matt (Oswalt). The two of them bond over many many drinks and Mavis spills her plan to get Buddy (Wilson) back. Mavis gushes over Buddy, glares at his wife and their baby while wiling away the rest of her time in town drinking or finishing the last novel in a no longer popular young adult series. Mavis’s return to her hometown highlights her own prolonged adolescence as everyone she went to school with has grown up, except for her and Matt. Will she get Buddy back? Will she grow up?

            Mavis is a great character, she reminds me of just about all of Danny McBrides characters. She is delusional and every time she thinks she’s learned a lesson, it’s a terrible one. She narrates the film via her YA novel, whose protagonist is the most popular and pretty girl in her school and a real bitch, just like Mavis was/is. The film is wickedly funny and wonderfully brave to give Mavis really no redeeming qualities, she has a dog, but even her stewardship of that little fluff ball seems suspect. It’s a real testament to the film, the acting and the writing that they create such a cringe worthy character, because those cringes come from that weird place where your sort of rooting for her to do something terrible, like break up a marriage.

            To embody this twisted delusional character you need a great actress, and Charlize Theron has proved herself to be that often. She’s proven she can ugly herself up and still connect with an audience, but rarely has she embodied a character who’s so ugly on the inside. There are many scenes of Mavis looking trashed with last night’s make up on, and then she goes to the spa and is transformed into the beauty queen she once was. It’s funny though, because Theron’s beauty is almost impossible to diminish by just taking off her make up. Her looks aside, she really does hold the screen with her low-key insanity. She’s caustic and unforgiving, but somehow we love her for it, and a lot of that comes from her scenes with Matt. Matt is a similar sad soul, but he was a sad geek in high school, beneath her contempt. Now the dichotomy maintains, but she finds in him a compatriot, a confessor and a drinking buddy. He calls her on her craziness, and her wonderfully insane justifications and romantic musings make her character pitiable, human.

            The whole cast does a very good job, but those two definitely hold up the movie. Diablo Cody is definitely a talented screenwriter, as much as people bag on her. She’s got an acidic wit and a real talent for taking an aberrant notion and fleshing out its quirks and its heartfelt realities. She though is very lucky to have found Jason Reitman as such a game collaborator. Thus far he’s directed his scripts and her scripts as features, and the two share a lot of wit, quirk and willingness to explore the “bad” guy. Thus far Reitman’s made films about a man who fights for cigarette companies, a man who fires people, a teenager who got knocked up, and now Mavis, and all of them come off as sympathetic characters. Now Cody’s solo efforts have not returned the same kind of dividends, I enjoyed both Jennifer’s Body and US of Tara, but they lack that Reitman touch.

            There are a lot of little things that really distinguish Reitman and his filmmaking. The biggest one is simply tone, he establishes a very strong, usually warm tone up front. Crafts a sympathetic character immediately and also just his work with actors gets the best out of them. He rarely gets scenery chewing or ribald over the top performances. Nuanced and with great timing he delivers films that aren’t cloying, but manage to tug at the heartstrings.

            So while Young Adult won’t be to everyone’s taste, if you’ve liked any of Reitman’s earlier films it shouldn’t disappoint. It’s a nice companion to a series of feel good films that are interested in deluding the audience, here the only delusion is the main characters and it’s a sublime one.

The Pop:

So usually Arclight doesn’t care if you bring in outside food/drinks. They just shrug, so I was going to review an iced tea along with my usual popcorn combo, but they stopped me this time. Those bastards, but luckily the popcorn and drink was good as usual.