Young Adult Movie Review

Tonight we were privileged to catch a sneak preview of Jason Reitman's latest film, Young Adult.  Reitman re-teamed with Juno screenwriter, Diablo Cody, for this one.  It stars Charlize Theron in one of her meanest roles ever as Mavis Gary a young adult book ghostwriter living it up in Minneapolis who passes out drunk every night to E! reality shows like Kendra and Keeping up with the Kardashians.  One day she's decided she's had enough of it and needs to get back with her high school sweetheart Buddy Slade.  These days Buddy's married and has a newborn daughter, but that's not going to stand in the way of Mavis.

Mavis is a terrible person, and almost always completely oblivious to how terrible of a person she is.  The one person who is seeing through all of this is Patton Oswalt who plays Matt Freehauf, the kid beat up by jocks in high school for being gay, even though he was straight.

We both really enjoyed this film.  Theron does a really good job of playing someone completely unlikable, yet you still somewhat root for her to get away with it all. She was somehow able to convincingly revert back to high school days and totally channel the mean girls. A few of her icy glares even made us, in the audience, sorry for whatever we must've said. While Up in the Air is still probably Reitman's best film and Juno kicked off the whole "awkward is funny" shtick of the last 5 years, this film is refreshingly cynical and honest.

There's been talk of Oscar buzz for this film.  It doesn't seem likely to win best picture, but with the potential for ten nominations and the Academy's love for Reitman, it wouldn't be shocking if it's at least nominated.  The main fault with it is that it might even be too short and with Theron in every single scene you can't take your eyes away from her great performance.  Another thing to note is her great chemistry with Patton Oswalt (you know, the goofy guy from King of Queens that isn't in all the Adam Sandler movies), something about their relationship is special.  Try to see this film when it comes out on December 16th. Here's the trailer for this dark comedy:

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