Young Adult (2011)

Young Adult (2011)

Storyline

Thirty-seven year old Mavis Gary seems incapable of happiness. She has had one failed marriage with no romance in her immediate horizon. She ghosts writes a young adult series of books, which has just been canceled due to low sales. She is in the process of writing the last book, with which she is having a mental block. She lives vicariously through Kendall Strickland, the teenaged female heroine in her books, as like Kendall she believes her high school years were the best years of her life when she was the prom queen. When she receives news that her high school beau, Buddy Slade, and his wife, Beth Slade, have just had their first child, Mavis takes it as a sign that she and Buddy are meant to be together. As such, she devises a false pretense to travel from her Minneapolis home back her her old hometown of Mercury, Minnesota to reclaim Buddy from Beth. As Mavis slyly or not so slyly does whatever she can to hang out with Buddy, even in Beth's company if need be, she also runs into

Plot

Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) is a divorced, alcoholic 37-year-old ghost writer of a series of young adult novels, who is on deadline with her editor to finish the last book of the soon-to-be-cancelled series. Mavis receives an e-mail with a picture of the newborn daughter of her high school boyfriend Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson) and his wife Beth (Elizabeth Reaser). Believing this to be a sign she and Buddy are meant to be together, Mavis leaves Minneapolis and returns to her hometown of Mercury, Minnesota, to reclaim her life with Buddy, under the pretext of overseeing a real estate deal.

Upon arriving after listening to "The Concept" by Teenage Fanclub on repeat from an old mixtape Buddy gave her in high school, Mavis arranges to meet him the next day at a local sports bar, for old times' sake. In the interim, she goes alone to a different bar, Woody's. There she reconnects with a former classmate she barely remembers, Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt), who became disabled after being beaten by jocks who erroneously assumed he was gay. Matt tells Mavis that her plan to destroy Buddy's marriage is irrational and selfish, but she ignores him.

The following day, Mavis meets Buddy at the sports bar, where they run into Matt, the bar's bookkeeper. On their way out, Buddy invites Mavis to a performance of Beth's "mom rock band". In the interim, Mavis spends another night getting drunk with Matt, who distills homemade bourbon in the garage of the house he shares with his sister Sandra. When Mavis attends the concert of Beth's band, the other moms are resentful of Mavis, whom they remember as the "psychotic prom queen bitch". When Beth's band performs, the lead singer dedicates their opening song to Buddy from Beth; much to Mavis's dismay, it is "The Concept".

Beth wants to stay out longer, so Mavis offers to drive the drunk Buddy home. On the lawn they share a kiss that is quickly broken up when the babysitter opens the front door to greet them. The next day, after an awkward encounter with her parents, Mavis is invited to Buddy's daughter's naming ceremony. She later goes out drinking with Matt again, during which Matt tells Mavis to grow up. The following day, Mavis attends the party, where she declares her love for Buddy, but he rebuffs her. Everyone at the party is called out to the lawn to await a surprise Buddy has prepared for Beth. Mavis, who has been drinking at the party, collides with Beth, who accidentally spills punch on Mavis's dress. Mavis insults her, and in a profanity-laced tirade tearfully reveals she became pregnant with Buddy's baby years ago, but had a miscarriage after three months.

Buddy, who has been preparing a drum-set gift for Beth in the garage, opens the garage door and belatedly learns what has transpired. Mavis asks him why he invited her. He reveals it was Beth's idea, as she feels sorry for Mavis. Humiliated, Mavis leaves the party and visits Matt, where she breaks down in tears and, later, initiates sex. The following morning, while Matt sleeps, Mavis has coffee in the kitchen with Sandra, who still idolizes her. Mavis talks about needing to change herself, but Sandra says Mavis is better than the rest of Mercury and should not change. Mavis says she agrees, and prepares to return to Minneapolis. Sandra asks to go with her but Mavis declines and leaves alone.

In a diner on her way home, Mavis writes the last chapter of the book, in which the main character graduates high school, quickly leaves her past behind and looks forward to the future. Afterward, in the parking lot, Mavis contemplates her crumpled car.

Cast

• Charlize Theron as Mavis Gary
• Patton Oswalt as Matt Freehauf
• Patrick Wilson as Buddy Slade
• Elizabeth Reaser as Beth Slade
• Collette Wolfe as Sandra Freehauf
• Hettienne Park as Vicki Robek
• J. K. Simmons as Mavis' boss (voice only)
• Louisa Krause as Hotel clerk

User Review

This film is highly recommended.

Finally a holiday movie comes along that dares to ask, " Can a high school prom queen steal her happily married ex-boyfriend from his wife and newborn child and find true love? " From the team that brought us the classic comedy, Juno, comes the wickedly entertaining, and to some, offensive Young Adult.

Directed by Jason Reitman and written by Diablo Cody, this dark comedy explores the aspirations of a beautiful, vain, and selfish woman as she schemes to breakup a marriage and reclaim her former sweetheart, Buddy. Now divorced, Mavis Gary ( Charlize Theron ), a ghostwriter of teen literature conveniently found in the YA section of bookstores everywhere, has never grown up and never had the life she felt destined to have. ( After all, she was voted Best Hair in her high school yearbook! ) Her life is in ruins, an eternal victim of herself. She decides to return to her small hometown hoping to snare her former sweetheart ( nicely downplayed by Patrick Wilson ) and with that in mind, live some of the glories of her past life. As Mavis mentions in one scene, "Love conquers all. "Haven't you seen The Graduate? " She lives in a fantasy world, clouded by booze.

Giving her a reality check about her plans is a dweeb from the past, Matt Freehauf ( Patton Oswalt ), whom Mavis meets at a local bar. She doesn't so much rekindle their friendship as she never had time for him before, just not in her league back then. "Oh, you're that hate crime guy," she says when they meet. Insensitive, yes. That's Mavis, and yes, Matt was permanently injured in a gay hate crime during his senior year, although he wasn't gay at all. Shades of irony! ( Not that there's anything wrong with that, yada, yada!) Alcohol (and there's plenty in use when Mavis is around ) brings these two lost souls together, that and Mavis' far- fetched dreaming.

Theron has the difficult role of making such a repulsive and mean-spirited woman, if not likable, at least, tolerable. She never tries to ingratiate herself. Instead, she depicts a mean girl caught in the throngs of arrested development and expects the movie audience to deal with it. Her acting choices work beautifully inside and out. Theron uses her expressive beauty and sexual allure to hide Mavis' twisted and unpleasant traits. Hopefully, this honest and compelling performance won't turn off Academy voters due to its nasty portrayal of its anti-heroine. It's a wonderful job of acting.

Oswalt gives a fully dimensional comic portrait of a small town loser type with bigger dreams. He's living with his sister. He's alone. He's Mavis' conscience and he's working overtime. He's the voice of reason ( and the sensible voice of the movie audience as well. ). Oswalt plays his character as an endearing slug, a man-child full of sage advice and bitter disappointment. It is a finely honed comic performance.

Cleverly scripted, Young Adult is filled with smart one-liners that advance the action and are keeping with their flawed characters. Yet the film carries with it a more serious tone, not the laugh-a-minute movie one would suspect from the trailer. The characters and their situations verge on the real with the comically surreal. In an uncomfortable but pivotal scene, Mavis addresses Buddy's married life with consoling words and advice that " we can beat this thing together" and leave his KenTacoHut world behind. Cody's sharply observed and cynical view of small town life is imbued in her characters and may be distasteful to some moviegoers, although I found this film quite amusing and droll. The only objection to the film was in two of the film's final scenes ( which were effectively done but inaccurate to the characters' true motivations and actions).

Reitman is again drawn to damaged characters in his leading roles as he had successfully done with films like Juno and Up in the Air. He is relentless in his ability to make such complicated people completely fascinating as they free fall into despair. He makes their journey filled with ironic and satirical possibilities, making the negative positively comic in tone.

Young Adult resists the sweet rosy side of life. It humorously embraces the sad fatalistic notion of our everyday existence, supplanting upbeat and unattainable desires with a refreshingly downbeat sensibility