I was a fan of Jason Reitman’s first two features: Thank You For Smoking (2005) and Juno (2007)—though both were critically acclaimed, particularly Juno, they experienced a good bit of backlash in the cinephile community, which dismissed Reitman as a smug, trite filmmaker without a trace of subtlety. Though I saw traces of this in both pictures, I found the writing and characters to be interesting enough to overcome it. With Up in the Air (2009), though, Reitman’s flaws began to feel more prevalent and less excusable. If anything, success seemed to have given him an air of entitlement: characters seemed formulaic, writing sloppy. Though Up in the Air also garnered a lot of praise in the mainstream, I found myself starting to shift away, even though I didn’t actively dislike the film. That feeling of excitement one gets when a favorite director has a new movie in the pipeline was definitely gone with Jason Reitman.
Now we have Young Adult, for which I had moderate (at best) expectations for. Alas, it’s easily the worst in his canon thusfar. If Up in the Air had a certain cavalier attitude in its direction, Young Adult is downright lazy. There’s absolutely nothing creative. Self-loathing, newly divorced former high school beauty and published writer trying to rekindle an old flame to give herself a sense of self-worth? Maybe there’s some potential there, but Mavis (a pretty good Charlize Theron) is written without a stroke of oomph. Mavis has all the traits that a screenwriting student might write in a homework assignment for the genre: she drinks too much, gorges on fast food, and generally wallows in her own misery, oblivious that others around her like Matt (Patton Oswalt of Big Fan) have it much, much worse.The supporting characters aren’t any better—they’re all one-note, including Matt, who has a mirroring “crutch” and propensity to live in the past in a cloud of excuses, and Buddy (Patrick Wilson), the aforementioned old flame who’s now happily married with an infant daughter, yet seems oblivious to Mavis’s master plan until it’s shoved down his throat.
From the beginning, any competent moviegoer can predict almost every plot development, including the predictable finale when Mavis, full of anger and frustration, reaches a breaking point, blows up…and then has the magical epiphany during a chat with Matt’s sister where it all clicks, and Young Adult ends with, yes, Mavis understanding that it’s time to let go of her youthful crushes and love of tequila shots, embrace what she has, and grow the fuck up. In short, ditch the “young,” keep the “adult,” and the quality of life will dramatically improve. What a concept! All that keeps Young Adult from being a truly wretched picture is the acting, which isn’t award caliber or anything like that, but is mostly strong across the board, particular Theron in the lead role. Otherwise, the contrived Young Adult offers next to nothing: Reitman continues his downward spiral, and I continue to sympathize more and more with those who found him supremely irritating from the start.
37/100
#1 by robert on December 27, 2011 - 1:19 pm
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Not a bad review, buit thinking you missed a significant point about the ending and therefore the film itself…Unlike most mainstream fare, Mavis is NOT redeemed and there is no indication that she will really grow up. She ALMOST get’s there, until Matt’s sister feeds her the crap she’s used to hearing/thinking, so instead she thinks to herself “fuck em”…almost as if although she realizes her effort to get Buddy back was folly, but that her existence is nonetheless as it should be. And all this, I would suggest, is some sort of commentary about the (low) level on whcih today’s younger generations exist – all as evidenced by the Kardashian TV programs throughout the film and the very types of books Mavis was writing.
#2 by Gabe on December 28, 2011 - 2:30 pm
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Hi Robert — I didn’t have the same takeaway from the scene you mentioned between Mavis and Matt’s sister. While yes, the sister heaped on the praise and congratulations, I thought her subsequent look and mannerisms implied that she finally understood she “had what it took” to be better than this, and that she was potentially on the way to redemption. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t ultimately get there! But I didn’t think that the discussion gave Mavis a “fuck this, I was right all along” mentality.
#3 by Marian on January 1, 2012 - 6:25 am
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Gabe, didn’t get your take-away at all, I think both you and this reviewer are reading way too much into the final scene. However, the rest of this review is pretty much spot on. I was very disappointed in this movie, I had only gone because I trust Theron’s instrincts in picking material, but this time I was wrong to do so. A pointless movie.
#4 by Andrew on January 1, 2012 - 10:08 pm
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I agree with a lot of this review, save for the misreading of the final scene. The talk with Matt’s sister doesn’t bring a “magical epiphany” that forces Mavis to grow up–it does the exact opposite.
Before the scene, she seems to have begun to realize that something is deeply wrong with her, and that she needs to grow up and move on from the past. Instead, Matt’s sister convinces her that she doesn’t need to change and that she is better than all of the fat idiots in her town. This is a replay of Mavis’s mean-girl mentality that has fueled her self confidence prior to the start of the movie.
So she throws out Buddy’s sweatshirt and kills him off in her book, but nothing has changed and she is still afflicted by the same deep-seated problems that have been her undoing throughout the movie.
I personally wasn’t a huge fan of this movie, which I went into expecting a comedy and instead got a depressing character study.
Still, to read the final scene as a pat epiphany followed by life “dramatically improv[ing]” seems like a disservice to the movie.
I’m interested if the reviewer disagrees with this reading of the ending.
Thanks!
#5 by Sean Malone on January 23, 2012 - 8:03 pm
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I tend to agree with most of the review except maybe the ending portion. This movie offers nothing redeeming to the viewer. The main character and the plot are static, nothing changes. Mavis is one of the least dynamic and self aware characters I’ve ever seen, rather than applaud Diablo Cody for knowingly creating this style of character, I’m appalled that anyone appreciates it. This reminds me of some of the material I read in writing workshops in grad school. Hell, it even reminds me a bit of something I wrote once. The difference was that I attempted to have the character redeem herself at the end, or at least become somewhat self aware. I don’t see that in Young Adult. The idea of showing the inner workings of a young adult author is interesting, but predictably her life is very similar to the shallow treatments given the characters in her work. One can only assume then, that this is Diablo Cody’s comment on her own life.