Review of Jason Reitman's Young Adult, starring Charlize Theron.
Mavis, a writer of young adult romance books living in the big city, has just gone through a divorce and begins to think maybe she was with the wrong guy all this time anyway. She decides she wants her high school sweetheart back. She packs up her cute little dog (so little he fits in a handbag) and goes back to the small town she always hated and thought she’d left behind. While working to get her sweetheart away from his new wife, she bonds with an old classmate she’d always mistreated and tries to find herself.
Because Hollywoodhas trained/ruined you, you would think this is another predictable chick flick. From My Best Friend’s Wedding to Sweet HomeAlabama, it sounds like we’ve seen this before. But we’d expect better of lead Charlize Theron as Mavis, director Jason Reitman (Up In the Air, Juno) and writer Diablo Cody (also of Juno fame) – and we get it.
Reitman stages his movie in the real world and lets people react how they really would if they heard of Mavis’ scheme. What she’s doing is not admirable, and at times, he lets his star be despicable – maybe even nuts. Mavis and nerd friend Matt (Patton Oswalt) are not Molly Ringwald and Jon Cryer in Pretty In Pink – or even how they’d be in Pretty In Pink: The Reunion. They’re a darker – way more alcoholic – combo. In a nice touch, the “big city” Mavis lives in isn’t New Yorkor L.A. It’s Minneapolis. To her, it’s not big and successful enough; to the townies she reunites with, it might as well be Paris.
In one particular scene, we really see how different this is from a standard chick flick. Mavis primps herself for her first encounter with the object of her affections, and she gets in front of the mirror and starts transforming into the babe we all know Charlize Theron can be. It’s not a music montage where she starts bopping around the room to some overly cute oldie It’s mostly silent. And in close-ups of her face we see her apply her makeup – way up close. We see the lines where the make up ends and her real face underneath begins. This is a mask she’s putting on. Mavis isn’t getting a makeover – she’s “made up” – and there’s a difference.
There really isn’t all that much music in other scenes either. When it is used, it’s used brilliantly. It’s a mix tape with Teenage Fanclub in her car or a Suicidal Tendencies CD Matt is cranking in his garage. We don’t hear the music as soundtrack; we hear it at the volume they are hearing it. And in one moment involving the movie’s love triangle, we really see how poignant and painful a song can be.
The movie is almost derailed by one really out of place scene that any hack could have crafted. It involves a big gathering of most of the major characters and histrionics we’d expect from a soap opera diva, not the troubled character Reitman and Cody have created. Until that moment, Theron has done such a great job portraying such a complex character, it’s a shame she’s forced to act in an “Oh please” moment.
Thankfully, it’s followed by a scene – and an ending – that rings more true. Young Adult ends up being for real adults, and it will allow young adults who watch it to feel more grown up than they would in any other movie with a a little dog in a handbag.