YOUNG ADULT directed by Jason Reitman (USA, 2011)
From the writer-director team that brought us Juno, Young Adult is an intelligent comedy of sexual manners; a lively and humorous movie with a darker subtext.
Mavis (Charlize Theron) is excellent as a fading femme fatale described ,in less charitable terms by one resident of her home town, as a “psychotic prom queen bitch”. By all appearances she lives a glamorous life as a single woman in a smart apartment in Minneapolis where she works as a ghost writer of a teen fiction series aimed at young adults. She’s blonde, sexy and slim despite appearing to exist on a diet of liquor and fast food.
But she’s also a divorced semi alcoholic who is addicted to daytime TV and unfulfilled by casual lovers. When she receives an e-mail from her ex, Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson) announcing the birth of a daughter she fixes on a doomed mission to rekindle the flame of this relationship . She is unfazed by the fact that her high school sweetheart is now a happily married father – “we can beat this thing together” she tells him.
Returning to her home town of Mercury, Minnesota means having to face a suburban hell where the locals are “so happy with so little” and which she sums up as “a hick lake town that smells of fish shit”. Continue reading
