The trouble with a flawed film, whose good parts and core “feel” are head and shoulders above most movie fare, is viewers with limited moviegoing time are tempted to dismiss it. Take the case of Young Adult, the new Charlize Theron film directed by Jason Reitman (Up In The Air, Juno) and written by Diablo Cody. Detractors are carrying on about the film’s screenplay lacking the full believability of, say, Cody’s Juno. Stressing that they’re partially correct would be to miss the point.
First of all, if Theron’s gleaming, cheeky portrait of an insecure yet totally charismatic narcissist isn’t the year’s best performance by a lead actress, it’s got to be damn close. Movie heroines these days tend to be all great or all bad. Theron’s Mavis, a former high school beauty, is bad to the core, yet since it is easy to recognize a little bit of ourselves in her every declaration and act of selfishness, we are wooed into liking her. Mavis is not above doubting herself, and does so with a self-mocking, wan gusto that is completely infectious. We’ve all known self-assured prima donnas like this. Mavis’ version exaggerates their inherent vanity into the realm of the tragic. Which brings us to the script’s “flaws.”
Theron, on a whim, returns to her Minnesota hometown upon learning her former high school beau (Patrick Wilson) has just become a father. We soon learn her goal is to no less than seduce him into leaving his family. How wrong of her to assume that’s even possible, you say. Yet her self-image is, from the film’s outset, projected as, well, exaggerated. Now living in the big city (Minneapolis) she prides herself on her status as a children’s author, yet we soon learn she’s no more than a ghostwriter. Propelled by her big-fish-in-a-small-pond resurgence onto her previously conquered domain, she proceeds to act like no years, let alone marriages and baby births, have gone by the wayside. Keeping her honest, or trying to, is Patton Oswalt, as the former picked-on kid from high school who was seriously injured in a bullying incident. Mavis, not recognizing him at first, is soon reminded he had the locker next to hers and she never bothered talking to him.
The entire set-up with Patrick Wilson inviting her over for a dinner with his wife and baby borders on the highly flammable in terms of credibility. Yet given its farcical conceit, the films works largely due to Theron’s amazing performance but also because the screenplay is uncannily adept at interjecting poignant vignettes along the way. These devices may occasionally seem jarring, but they gradually give Mavis a depth that we don’t see at first. She’s still incorrigible and delusional, but she’s starting to get it. She plumbs to the lowest depths of a character steeped in depression, then bounces back from her ordeals at least a little stronger. You don’t often see a character as striking and memorable as this one. Theron glides through it all completely owning every nuance and detail. Oswalt gives a restrained performance in a role that could have easily gone bonkers.
Reisman, quickly becoming a master of the “small” scene that makes a large impact, has tackled a film that had to be a risky undertaking. Young Adult’s mantra could easily be The Animal’s “Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.” Speaking of which, Young Adult may be the most musically sophisticated movie in some time. Its use of Teenage Fanclub’s “The Concept” will give you goosebumps as surely as Theron’s performance and character will be solidly etched in your memory.
8 Narcissists (Out of 10)
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