For many, YOUNG ADULT is going to be an exercise in defying expectations. You'd be surprised how many people like or dislike a film based on their preconceived ideas of what it is they're walking into, based on such things as trailers, word of mouth, reviews, etc. If a movie isn't "what they expected," they somehow think that's the basis for judging its worth. And often they punish a film in their minds because it didn't live up to some internal standard that has little to do with its actual entertainment value. Here's an idea: walk into a movie with zero expectations; walk in open minded, able to let the film wash over you and, dare I say, surprise you in the process. It's a great thing, trust me.
Case in point, we have YOUNG ADULT, which has a pedigree that would make it very easy to have certain expectations about the kind of film it is. It comes from the writer (the Oscar-winning Diablo Cody) and director (Jason Reitman) of JUNO, so you might expect a light-hearted comedy with snappy dialogue and a few moments of seriousness to drive home its deeper messages. Not only would you be 1000 percent wrong, but you'd be selling YOUNG ADULT seriously short on just about every level. Anchored by a pair of performances that are among the year's best, surprisingly sophisticated dialogue, and a subject matter that is unsettling, with touches of humor, this movie achieves moments and takes us on such a nakedly personal journey that it feels almost death defying for its characters.
Perhaps to directly address the idea of a female writer who seems slightly fixated on the lives of teenagers, Cody forgoes dialogue that sounds like her attempting to invent catch phrases and makes her lead character Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) a writer of fiction for young adults, living in the big city (well, Minneapolis). But her publisher has decided that the successful series she's been working on for years should come to an end and has charged Mavis with writing her final installment. Somehow, this triggers her desire to return to her hometown in northern Minnesota and try to recapture a time in her life when she believes she was at her best--her high school years when she was dating a handsome young man named Buddy Slade.
If memory serves, our first image of Mavis is lying face down in bed in her small, messy apartment. It's almost impossible to imagine Theron as unattractive (but if you've seen MONSTER, you know she can walk that line when she wants to), but seeing her wake up after a night of hard drinking is not a pretty sight. What's fascinating is watching her get ready for a night out and going on a date she couldn't give two shits about. The hair, makeup and clothes belong to a woman who has grown up being the prettiest, most desired girl most of her life, and she's clearly grown bored of how easy men are to figure out and impress. Theron gets to be more showy later in the film, but in these early scenes, we begin to realize that she's about to unveil a character the likes of which she has never played, and that opens up a world of possibilities.
Her trip to her hometown is actually triggered by a mass email from Buddy announcing the birth of his new child. She interprets the email as a cry for help aimed directly at her. We know early on that Mavis is a bit delusional, but that doesn't stop her from throwing clothes in a suitcase and heading home for the first time since high school. When in town, she runs into Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt), who went to high school with Mavis, but she doesn't really remember him until she recalls that he was the victim of a misdirected hate crime (jocks beat him up because they thought he was gay and permanently damaged his leg so that he walks with a cane).
Because the characters is played by Oswalt, we presume he'll be the film's comic relief, and he certainly does provide some insight into Mavis' plan to seduce Buddy away from his wife. But what Oswalt accomplishes here as an actor has only been tapped on rare occasions in the past, in particular his revelatory work in BIG FAN two years ago. But as the film goes on, the depth to which that beating changed the course of Matt's life is revealed and provides some of the film's most devastating scenes. I'm not big on talking about awards in my reviews, but I would love to see Oswalt get an Oscar nomination for this role. Late in the film when Theron is questioning whether there is anything about her to love, Oswalt delivers a line that just crushed me. But credit also goes to Cody, who perfectly captures in a single sentence the curious relationship between the pretty, popular girls and the boys who will forever admire them but never attempt to win their hearts.
A great deal of the mid-section of YOUNG ADULT focuses on Mavis' embarrassing attempt to win back Buddy, played as an adult by Patrick Wilson (Little Children, Watchmen). Twilight's Elizabeth Reaser is Buddy's wife, Beth, who seems to almost take pity on Mavis' plight, while her friends (many of which were also high school acquaintances) are the ones who are especially nasty to Mavis for what she's trying to do. During this entire period, Mavis is furiously plugging away at her book, which seems to incorporate into its plot a lot of what is happening to her right now. Cody cleverly turns these events into a messy high school reunion, which in turn fuels Mavis' creative juices, and makes it clear that the reason Mavis is so good at writing for teens is that she never really stopped being one.
What strikes you about Theron's portrayal of Mavis is that she manages to make us care and root for a character who is more often than not a deplorable human being. Without giving too much away, what's even more shocking about YOUNG ADULT is that when the film is done, we're pretty much convinced that Mavis has not experienced a big, life-altering change. She certainly more aware of her shortcomings, but hasn't really made any progress toward being a better person. That's a gutsy move, but not unlike the ending of Reitman's last film, UP IN THE AIR, with George Clooney staring at that departure/arrival board with a clearer understanding of why he will never form any meaningful relationships, but still ready to continue the life that got him there.
I haven't talked much about Reitman's work, and that's because his greatest achievement on YOUNG ADULT is letting the strength of the material and his actors to the work for him. I'm sure upon watching the film a couple more times that I'll see more of his imprint on the work, but upon first viewing, it seems he's taking a minimalist approach to his visual style and concentrating more on extract the best performances possible from his cast. Sometimes, that's all it takes, and I applaud his restraint.
The real surprise about YOUNG ADULT is that it's not actually a movie about an unhinged woman trying to win back her ex-boyfriend (well, that's not ALL it's about). It's primarily a strange little love story about a one-time class beauty and a quiet little man who assembles action figures and lives with his sister (a scene stealing Collette Wolfe). But the real eye-opening thing about this movie how determined it is not to be any one thing or fit neatly into a genre; I find that ferociously refreshing. And back to my original point, I love that nothing that Reitman, Cody, Theron, or Oswalt has done to this point has quite prepared us for what they accomplish with YOUNG ADULT, a deftly smart and sometimes unnerving work that takes us down unpredictable roads and thrives in its dark corners. It simultaneously reminds us of the best and worst parts of the human soul, and shows us that a lot of people use both in order to get through the day. This is a great movie that doesn't use the usual tricks to show us how great it is. The film opens December 16.
