The Young Adult in Jason Reitman's new comedy-drama is an awful person. She lies, she schemes, she manipulates and she drinks so much she starts every day face down. And she is totally fascinating.
Charlize Theron plays Mavis Gary, who has come to a crossroads in her life. Her decisions about her future propel the film's involving drama, while also providing heaps of black humor.
Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody (Juno) proves she's not a one-hit wonder with her exceptionally mordant script. It gives director Reitman plenty of material with which to draw a finely nuanced portrait of a severely troubled woman.
Mavis writes children's books, but her latest contract draws to a close and she must decide what to do next with her dead-end life. She leaves her cramped Minneapolis apartment, takes her tiny neglected dog, and returns to her small hometown of Mercury, Minn. There, she plans on forcing a reconciliation with her ex-boyfriend Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson), despite his being happily married and the father of a newborn daughter.
Mavis knows her beauty could entice most men, so she sets out for a full makeover before then ingratiating herself to the point that Buddy will again fall for her.
Her brazen attempts reach Iago-levels of two-faced mendacity. Cody's script excels in providing Mavis with her scathing, character-defining dialogue, as well as her atrocious but believable behavior.
Mavis somehow falls in league with Matt (Patton Oswalt), the voice of reason and a forgotten former high school classmate who reprimands her for her actions. But he also revels in watching the building crisis. Through Matt, Mavis' true deceitfulness becomes apparent, and appalling.
Eventually, Mavis, in a classic meltdown scene, bungles the biggest option in her life along with every other choice. And despite the insidiousness of her prior behavior, the train wreck is still painful to watch. Theron may have nabbed another Oscar nomination for her ability, in this one scene, to elicit viewer emotions while also revealing her character's total depravity.
Young Adult becomes a comedy filled with the pathos that is often hard to face. Several scenes might not ring entirely true or credible, but, in all, the film delivers a well-rounded package.
BOO ALLEN is an award-winning film critic for the Denton Record-Chronicle. MOVIE RATING
Young Adult
****
Rated R, 94 minutes.
Opens Friday.
