11/03/2012: Young Adult [2011]

There was quite a lot of buzz around this movie, mainly because it was written by Diablo Cody, who it seems is making a name for herself. I was very undecided on what to watch last night, and finally decided to give this a try. I was not disappointed, but I am a little confused as to whether I really liked it, but I'm not sure if I'm supposed to enjoy it.




Young Adult is truly a character study kind of movie. The protagonist is not anyone you would want to relate to, she's a 37 year old dysfunctional, depressed, and a little pathetic. The movie follows her as she returns to the home town she escaped to try to steal back her high school sweetheart who just had a child. This is one hopeless mission one would think.

Of course Mavis's return stirs up quite the storm, as the small town wonders why a successful author and rich city woman would return. Surprisingly no one appears to recognize her for what she is, a failing alcoholic who never grew up and lives in the past. Strangely though, for a movie about a woman stuck utterly and completely in her past there is not a single flashback nor anything more than a few pieces of backstory. 

The cliched mix-tape, taken to a whole n'otha level when infinitely looped.

 While Mavix is the whole focus of the movie, Young Adult features a number of other interesting characters, who are not given much depth other than Matt Freehauff, who is introduced as 'the hate crime kid". Even then every character in this movie is just there to compliment Mavis's character. Charlize Theron, gives a great performance. Patton Oswalt and the rest of the cast are also good but they're characters aren't given the opportunity to really let them show off.

Guys like me are born loving women like you.

However, Young Adult is not meant to be a group story. It is all about Mavis and that is the way it should be. Diablo Cody made her screenwriter debut with Juno, back in 2007, which was a great movie as well. Young Adult follows a similar style, but shows  a much more mature, emotionally deep and darker kind of humour than Juno. So while Young Adult is by no means a laugh out loud comedy, it does have that dark underlying type of humour that makes this kind of movie enjoyable no matter how depressing the characters life may be.

Kentacobell: I spent 4 minutes trying to decide why it said KGP instead of KFC or PFK. I'm guessing Spanish.

 I was also surprised to learn that Diablo Cody wrote Jennifer's Body, but hopefully she has a little more success in the horror genre with her edit of The Evil Dead remake's script. So all in all I must say Young Adult is a very strong movie and something everyone should see once.it may not cheer you up, or make you feel happy, but you will definitely not be displeased or feel you wasted your time.

Link:
Young Adult IMDB