It's Time To Grow Up

We open on a tall apartment building. Inside, the camera hovers over a bedroom with the television still on, and a young woman sprawled out on her bed, looking like she's recovering from a night of one-too-many. It looks down on her, almost like a person hanging their head in shame at what this woman has become. She eventually awakens, feeds her dog, feeds herself, plays a video game, and then sits at her computer. There is the ambiance of the character's feeling of "I don't have anything else better going on today." This is 37-year-old Mavis Gary. She is stuck in a rut, and has some serious growing up to do.

In director Jason Reitman's arrested-development comedy, Young Adult, he focuses on a woman who refuses to mature with those around her, and who goes about life as a brat who thinks she entitled to whatever she wants. This film is her wake-up call, a darkly funny story about what it means to cast away childish and high school antics, and to finally become an adult.

Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) was the admired girl in high school, and it seemed like everything would come easy for her. But now, her life doesn't seem to be going anywhere. She lives in a dreary apartment, with only her dog as a companion. Mavis is a writer of teen literature, and was once doing well with her book series, which is about a popular girl in her high school years. She is now writing the last book, due to her audience's decreased interest. Mavis has so far lived her life with almost nothing to show for it. She then receives an invitation to a party in her hometown for her ex-boyfriend Buddy's (Patrick Wilson) and his wife Beth's (Elizabeth Reaser) newborn baby. Determined to win Buddy back and continue where they left off in high school, Mavis accepts the invite. Once she arrives, Mavis will do what she can to sabotage their marriage and rekindle her past relationship.

Charlize Theron is ideal as the girl that you once both secretly loathed and envied in high school. She is flirtatious with men and expects them to simply fall for her. Her character is a person who once had everything going for her, but is now hopelessly empty. She is a compulsive liar, telling her ex-boyfriend that she is back in town for real estate matters, when in fact, she's there to get him back; and she sits alone at a restaurant table, typing random letters in her phone to make people think she's texting someone. Mavis is intriguing in the way how she is someone who you would want to distance yourself from, but one who you can weirdly relate to, in the way that we all need to face adulthood eventually.

Patton Oswalt's role, as a former high school classmate of Mavis's, is her voice of reason. She constantly rebuffs his helpful advice; but he's always there to try and steer her in the right direction, even if she still goes into inappropriate territory. Oswalt's character wasn't in Mavis's inner circle in school, so it's ironically interesting to see these two different people suddenly come back into each other's lives.

Screenwriter Diablo Cody, who first collaborated with Reitman for his 2007 film Juno, returns to pen the script. Just like her other movies, she employs hip, comical and quotable dialogue. Cody seems to specialize in writing memorable lines for the teenage characters whom are normally at the center of her movie scripts, such as in Juno and 2009's Jennifer's Body. But having Mavis as her main character seems proper, seeing as she is an adult with a teenage soul. Diablo Cody writes Mavis in a way that makes you question what exactly her deal is. We don't know why she acts out the way she does. But once you find out the true influence behind her behavior, it's unexpected and heartbreaking.

Diablo Cody makes clever use of narration throughout the film. Whenever we see Mavis typing her book, we hear what she's writing down. What she's writing for her book very closely resembles what she is living through. The fantasy that Mavis is putting to paper is the one that she desperately clings to in real life.

Jason Reitman, as with his other films, uses comedy when dealing with real world issues. He did it with the tobacco industry in 2005's Thank You for Smoking, teen pregnancies in Juno and the current recession in 2009's Up in the Air. Now, in Young Adult, he concentrates on the reluctance that people have towards growing up and moving on with life. He brings Mavis through a world where everyone is changing, but she stays the same. What's fun about her character is that Reitman directs Theron to have her act in ways that could divide audiences on whether or not Mavis is likable. In the end, it's up to us how we accept her. Mavis Gary might not have been someone to sign your yearbook in high school, but that doesn't mean you should ignore her relevant, witty and coming-of-age tale.

Final grade: A