This must be the year for unlikable movie heroines. Young Adult marks the return of director Jason Reitman with screenwriter Diablo Cody, their first film together(unless you count Jennifer's Body, which he produced) since Juno four years ago. The combination of Cody's ear for whip smart dialogue with Reitman's knack for smart, insightful directorial choices has produced gold in the past, but this is a departure for them in a sense. Young Adult is undoubtedly one of the most uncomfortable comedies anyone will ever experience. That's a good thing, by the way. But for Reitman and Cody, with expectations for them so high, the film feels a little bare, and they pull their punches just enough to cause disappointment.
While Cody has slipped into pointless genre before with Jennifer's Body, Reitman has mostly stayed lofty with Thank You for Smoking and his Oscar nominated Up in the Air. Young Adult is a comedy, first and foremost, and the actions of spoiled teen fiction writer, Mavis Gary(Theron) are designed to make you laugh between cringes. Mavis is a beautiful, successful woman, and the Twilight-esque franchise she writes for makes her a sort of celebrity, although not nearly as much of one as she thinks. A perpetual drunk who exists on alcohol, random sex, and watching reality TV brats for inspiration, Mavis might as well be one of the legions who read her books.
Determined to be the center of the universe again, Mavis leaves the big city of Minneapolis to her eyeblink of a small town in Minnesota to reclaim old glories. There's just one problem. Mavis is a scathing snot. She's utterly self centered, cruel, and dismissive of everyone. She has complete tunnel vision on what she wants and nothing else matters, and what she wants right now is to hook up with her old love, Buddy(Patrick Wilson). There are just a couple of problems: Buddy's married, and he just became a father. Oops. Not that it matters to Mavis, and her oh so obvious ploy isn't making her too popular. To Mavis, everybody in town should still her as the "mean girl" prom queen she was. They should ignore the obvious disgust she has for them and small towns in general. They should worship at her feet, basically.
One person still digs her, though, and that's Matt Freehauf(Patton Oswalt), a former classmate Mavis totally ignored in high school, except when he became notable for being crippled by a bunch of thugs who thought he was gay. He becomes her Jiminy Cricket, the angel on her shoulder warning her against the destruction she's about to cause, not only to this apparently happy family but also to herself.
Mavis is such a vile human being inside and out that she makes Cameron Diaz's character in Bad Teacher look like Mary Poppins. There's nothing wrong with a film that features a terrible character like that. Nor is it a requirement to have that character learn some valuable lesson and remake themselves. In fact, Cody and Reitman deserve all the credit in the universe for not making this some cookie cutter story of redemption. The problem isn't with Mavis, but with the blank people who have to put up with her. "Minnesota nice" only stretches so far, but nobody treats Mavis in the way any rational person would. Clearly insane, with sociopathic tendencies, Mavis should either be drummed out of town or locked in a rubber room. Instead everybody just sort of watches while she unravels, knowing full well what the result will be. Maybe Cody is trying to say something about mid-western values in their treatment of her, but it could've been more clear. By having everyone respond so casually, they are in essence letting Mavis off the hook. This becomes a huge problem in the film's final moments.
The film isn't totally without perception, as it does have some things to say about our treatment of celebrity, both on a large and small scale. Mavis sees herself as a star, but she's mistaken in numerous ways. In her hometown she was just a big fish in a small pond, the one girl who and found success. But Mavis also finds out just how popular(or not) she really is when she confronts someone who knows the books intimately, but has no clue who she is. Theron's look of combined shock and disgust at this moment is priceless, and it's clear she's reveling in playing a broken character like this, where her outward beauty is only matched by the ugliness within. When paired up with Oswalt, the pair make a great team. The bulk of the film's biggest laughs come with them together on screen, where she's free to fire as many politically incorrect jabs at him as possible.
There's something to be said about the talent of Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman that Young Adult is as good as it is. Imagine it in the wrong hands, and Young Adult would've turned into "Sweet Home Minnesota" or some other forgettable comedy. Young Adult may be a little disappointing, but one thing it isn't is a film worth dismissing.
