Young Adult

While I can't say I wasn't interested in seeing the latest film from the combo of director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody (they hit a chord with "Juno" a few years ago), I have to admit it was sort of uncomfortable viewing, as its main character, Mavis (Charlize Theron in an almost-sure-to-be-nominated Best Actress Oscar performance) in her late-30s, stumbles through her present state of depression. Present-day Mavis is a ghost writer of a series of "young adult" book winding down due to sales slowdown, and she's having problems finishing the last book, and having moved away from a small Minnesota town (and landing in its bigger city of Minneapoilis) and having gone through a lot of the "expected" life milestones with little to show for it, she's at a cross-roads of her life and mired in a life stuck in neutral. She lives on diet Coke and booze, and reality TV when she's not passed out.

Mavis was one of those popular girls whose best years where in high school, and 20 years later, she gets an email announcing the birth of her high school sweetheart Buddy's (Patrick Wilson) daughter, and Mavis decides it's time to win him back, so she heads back to her small hometown, and her delusional plans get reality-checked by a former schoolmate, Matt (Patton Oswalt), whom she bumps into at a bar, and he has had his own cross to bear being subjected to a severe beating from other school bullies and left crippled, necessitating the use of a brace-cane to walk around, among other injuries. Mavis and Matt were never in the same orbits in high school, but 20 years later, Mavis's plans to win back Buddy befuddles and yet intrigues Matt, and Mavis would soon uses him as an unlikely sounding board amongst her drunken states.

The trailers are cut to show a far funnier film than the actual film is, but in the midst of Mavis's misadventures and mis-overtures, it cuts to Mavis's core in the final act, and the uncomfortable tone and misappropriateness of her self-inflicted mission comes full circle. As a character study, it's messy and throughout the film, Mavis manages to use real-life events seen or overheard to produce some material for the book, and that interplay with her own life yields an interesting view of Mavis's own internal conflict and reveals the absurdity of an immature outlook on life and immediate situations, but it also allows her to work through her own issues and finding her way back to some of her lost mojo, albeit with a better emotional foundation.

I think it'll play better to the audience in their 30s and 40s, asking them to reflect on meta-life questions and their general state of happiness and whether they are living the life they thought they'd be living coming out of their formative teenage years.

I give it 3 stars, or a grade of B.