2011 Films: #23

#23 Young Adult


There's a part of me that thinks Diablo Cody has a little bit of the Woody Allen thing going on in that oftentimes the lead character in his films is a projection of himself, or part of himself, anyway. Since Annie Hall, Woody-lite has been played by Jason Bigg, Larry David (equally Jewish and neurotic) and most recently Owen Wilson. That said, Cody herself was not a pregnant teen (Juno) or a possessed cheerleader (Jennifer's Body), but YA feels like it could have a few twinges of autobiography in it.

Like Cody, Charlize Theron's Mavis Gary is a divorced writer living in Minneapolis. She generally smokes and drinks her way to passing out face-first alongside her purse dog. Her most successful venture to date is a young adult book series in the vain of Sweet Valley High. Finding herself unmotivated and ducking deadlines, she returns to her hometown of Mercury, Minnesota for a mini-retreat. Cody's script, like Juno, holds nothing back in waging war on small town Minnesota, but whereas in Juno it was kitsch, here it is just mean-spirited. Much of that comes from Mavis' queen bee outlook; she is less than thrilled to be home. Pounding shots at a local watering hole, she runs into ex-classmate Matt Freehauf (an excellent Patton Oswalt), who walks with a cane due to a high school incident. Since Mavis is still stuck in high school, she blows him off completely at first before realizing she can use his help in achieving her ulterior motive--winning back her high school sweetheart Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson). Never mind that he is married with a child--when you're as important as Mavis Gary is to the Mercury community, you can get whatever you want.

Or so she thinks. Theron is absolutely acerbic and brutal to the point of cringing, but more importantly she makes Mavis' inability to move on from the past feel believable. Patrick Wilson is great as a guy who inadvertently lets his ex in more than he means to, and Elisabeth Reaser is cute to the point of making you want to vomit as his wife; she plays drums in a band of all mothers called Nipple Confusion. And Patton Oswalt's Matt provides the voice of reason and harsh reality to Mavis' delusions and as such, the scenes between Oswalt and Theron are far and away the best. This is the second team-up for Cody and director Jason Reitman, and they again prove formidable, giving the audience a dark and often hilarious look at a woman who doesn't even realize she is unraveling. Even if she does--she's not about to admit it.

Happy Valen times!