Young Adult (2011)

Re-teaming of Juno screen writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman. Young Adult stars Charlize Theron as Mavis Gary, the divorced, 37 year old ghost writer of a series of young adult novels. While trying to work on what is to be the last of the to-be discontinued book series, Mavis becomes distracted when she receives a mass email announcement  advising her of the birth of the first child of her high school boyfriend Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson) and his wife Beth (Elizabeth Reaser). Mavis decides impulsively to leave her home in Minneapolis and drive to the small town of Mercury, Minnesota where she grew up and "rescue" Buddy from his wife and child. Once there Mavis runs into a partially crippled old high school classmate, Matt Freehuff (Patton Oswald) whom she barley knew, but to whom she confesses the intent of her visit. The two quickly become something of sparing/drinking partners, with Matt trying to talk her out of "ruining Buddy's life", and Mavis insisting that she is meant to be with her old flame.

Mavis undertakes concerted efforts to spend as much time with Buddy as possible, Buddy and his wife seem surprisingly fine with this, having actually taken pity on Mavis, whose life is a wreck. However Mavis of course misreads the situation, determined to see Buddy as trapped in his life and reaching out to her, not genuinely happy as he in fact is. The purpose of the movie is really to examine people who never grow up, an increasingly common phenomena in our present society. In such the film is kind of the flip side of Juno, which features a young women (Ellen Paige) who talks and acts like a hipster adult, here we have a grown, successfully, and beautiful women who acts like a high school bitch. I liked this movie more then I liked Juno, its not as ambitious or flashy, the comedy's okay but the drama sneaks up on you, its really a rather effecting piece. Kudos to Ms. Theron for committing so much to this flawed and self obsessed character. Also kudos to the team of Cody and Rietman for giving us a unique story, with some nice social commentary little touches such as Mavis's constantly watching equally self obsessed reality TV. Both of the creative minds on this movie always seem to come up with something worth seeing. ***