‘Young Adult’ marks several returns. Firstly it’s the reunion of director/scriptwriter team Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody, who charmed audiences and the Academy with 2007 smash ‘Juno’. Now they turn their attentions to an older age group with their second film together, starring Charlize Theron- herself returning to the screen after a three year absence.
The adult of the title is Mavis (Charlize Theron), a thirty-something writer of teen fiction who finds herself in a rut after a recent divorce. One morning, she receives an email informing her that her childhood sweetheart Buddy (Patrick Wilson) has had a baby. Convinced that they are meant to be together, and that he could not possibly be happy with such a ‘boring’ domestic situation, Mavis goes back to her home town, where she was the most popular girl in school, only to find everyone has grown up. With only the former high school nerd Matt (Patton Oswalt) as her confidant, she pursues Buddy, but finds her ‘destiny’ harder to come by than she first thought.
Written with typical Cody acid, the film treads many familiar paths her past films travelled (a leftfield, outspoken lead, small town politics) but once again creates a unique and oddly magnetic character. Sort of like the ‘anti-Juno’, Mavis is completely without redeeming features- divisive, and jealous of other people’s happiness, she spends the film in complete disbelief that looks and popularity have not left her in a happier place. The script, along with Reitman’s direction, examines the pain of growing up, and the emotional ‘no man’s land’ of High School that seems to leave everyone scarred to some extent.
Whilst the story may be somewhat familiar, the performances are indeed unique- particularly between Theron and Oswalt. A mixture of affection and disgust, the pair work perfectly together and provide a lot of the film’s better scenes. Wilson is solid, although he is required to do very little other than be a pawn in Mavis’ game. Theron as Mavis, however, brings the character to life in a way few other actresses could. Charismatic in a completely vacuous way, she plays ‘immature’ in a believable, and engrossing way, never playing up to the camera in the way that, say, Cameron Diaz did in ‘Bad Teacher’.
Whilst it clearly has the fingerprints of its writer all over it, ‘Young Adult’ takes the best of Cody’s writing and combines it with talented and familiar hands in Reitman and Theron. In particular, Theron’s dead-eyed, acerbic anti-heroine gives the film a centre, and the audience permission to side with a character whose intentions are far from pure. It may not be as immediately striking as ‘Juno’, but this latest examination of American downfall shows everyone involved has got more to show us.
'Young Adult' is out in cinemas now.
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