Since discovering that I haven’t done many review posts lately, except BOT feature ones, I was pretty much focused on just watching couple of new movies. Because the problem isn’t about writing reviews, it is my inability to watch movies at this point and it is mostly due to my TV obsession at the moment. Fall schedule is catching speed and I still need to finish up with Breaking Bad. But enough about that, this post is about Young Adult and Charlize Theron looking horribly good which makes me think about the fact that I like her a lot lately.
Diablo Cody has been kind of my hidden favorite since Juno but I haven’t followed her in a manner of wanting to see everything she’s written. Yet, I keep stumbling on her movies and like them because she is very consistent with her writing. While Young Adult is like the grown-up version of Juno, it still possessed a different life lesson and the movie made a lot of sense. Cody doesn’t sugar code her characters and that is why Mavis Gary (portrayed by Theron) isn’t a woman to everybody’s liking. She is manipulative, selfish and doesn’t seem to think of the consequences – if I would encounter this person in real life, I wouldn’t like her at all and yet, Cody writes Mavis and Theron plays her in a way that you get really drawn in. Her whole development as a character makes total sense in a way that it is not perfect and comes off as something far from a fairy tale.
I couldn’t relate to Mavis as a person but I could really see that struggle in her which makes the whole movie a bit more meaningful. Young Adult is more or less about a woman who is unable to grow up but I do think that there is also that important factor of not being able to let go of your past. She is so certain that she hates her hometown and people living there that she has to constantly tell herself that, in the end it just goes to show that she is way more broken than everybody seems to think. We witness that vulnerability in the scene where she takes her clothes off in front of Matt (Patton Oswalt) after having an embarrassing moment at Buddy’s (Patrick Wilson) house. Just so depressing and in that split moment the first and only time we see the true Mavis.
Though IMDb doesn’t rate it low nor high, on a verge of being mediocre, I think it deserves a tiny bit more credit. I do think this movie has hidden meanings but I guess it only comes out to those who are able to relate in more ways than one. Plus, I think Young Adult is a surprising movie! After seeing the trailer a while back, I remember not getting the movie at all because I did get a very cliché vibe at first but that has now evolved into a very different kind of feeling. I wouldn’t say it is my favorite movie but it comes very close to Juno in a way that it shows us that everybody makes mistakes. When it comes to Mavis, well, she didn’t learn from hers but I think it suited the movie well – there aren’t always happy endings and sometimes forgetting is the only possible way to cope.
I really loved this movie. When I reviewed it a few months back, I made sure to specify that this wasn’t pure comedy; it was dark. A lot of people walked into the movie thinking they’d get a few laughs out of it, not realizing it dealt with serious psychological issues surrounding the main character, Mavis. It was also one of the few movies that year that made me overwhelmingly uncomfortable (the party scene at the end…yikes!!!), and not a lot of movies have the ability to do that. Good review!
Mavis was interesting.. she and Kevin’s mom are my favorite characters to wonder about while I go to school for instance.
Glad you didn’t hate this movie, as many people do. It’s a tough film to understand especially since it was mis-advertised as comedy when in fact it’s a very sad, deep character study. Theron was simply incredible in this movie, my 3rd favorite performance from her.
I think that’s the problem with it, they didn’t know how to present it because it wouldn’t be appealing to women to see a woman who doesn’t know anything and makes mistakes and I think they had no idea. So they said it’s a comedy.. which is far from it. I thought it was slight black humor but mostly, I was ashamed and I couldn’t even look at the party scene – so painful and far from funny!
I thought that the performances from Oswalt and Theron are definitely Oscar-worthy and I can definitely consider this one of my favorite films of the year, even though I will admit there are problems here and there. I just hope that this film gets a lot of recognition from the Academy. Good review Ray.
The dynamic between Oswalt and Theron was so clashing and yet it made so much sense.
Plus I’m glad to hear people agree on it being much better than IMDb says, usually I trust and agree with it but first time ever I was shocked to see such a mediocre grade on such a deep and meaningful movie. Hope for the best for this one, definitely a worthy of some awards!
I had decided against this one, I guess because of the way it had been marketed, but your review has got me thinking differently now. I reckon that I’ll try to check this one out at some point, thanks!
It is kind of like an indie black comedy with a hint of desperation.. So definitely check it out!