Susan Granger’s review of “Young Adult” (Paramount Pictures)
Charlize Theron delivers a knockout performance in this character study of a brazen, narcissistic former ‘prom queen’ whose life has gone steadily downhill since high school.
Taking stock of her dissolute, disheveled, detached life in a sterile, high-rise apartment in Minneapolis, where she ghost-writes pulpy fiction for young adults, 37 year-old, recently divorced Mavis Gary (Theron) recalls that she was happiest when she was a teenager, going steady with her football star sweetheart, Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson). Deluded by self-absorption, not to mention alcoholism, Mavis decides to drive back to her small, nondescript hometown of Mercury, Minnesota, and try to revive that romance, despite the fact that Buddy is now married to Beth (Elizabeth Reaser) and she’s just received an e-mail informing her that they’ve welcomed a newborn daughter.
After checking into a local motel and finding a bleak neighborhood bar, Mavis runs into nerdy, crippled Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt) – who was brutally beaten by classmates many years ago – in whom she confides her wishfully deranged home-wrecking plans. Although he caustically cautions her that Buddy is really happily married and not in need of ‘rescuing,’ she disregards Matt’s warnings and manipulates clueless, straitlaced Buddy into meeting her the next day for a drink. And that’s just the beginning of the emotional chaos and hurtful confusion she thoughtlessly causes because, while everyone else has matured, self-destructive Mavis still lacks perspective and, above all, humility.
Writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman – who collaborated so successfully on “Juno” (2007) – strike a wry vein of glossy, dark humor beneath the pathetic pathos, aided and abetted by cinematographer Eric Steelberg and editor Dana Glauberman. And pairing beautiful, statuesque, blonde Charlize Theron (Oscar-winner for “Monster”) with an unconventional sparring partner like pudgy comedian Patton Oswalt (TV’s “King of Queens”) pays off. Yet, despite the fact that Theron’s bitter, reprehensible bitch is eventually publicly humiliated, she never approaches any sort of redemption.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Young Adult” is a disheartening, dysfunctional 6, distinguished primarily by its remarkable performances.
