By: Dove
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Let’s face it – we’ve all known a girl like Mavis Gary. She was the pretty girl in high school – quite possibly the prettiest – and one of the meanest girls you ever encountered with a pack of equally horrible friends. She got by on her looks, and could flash a smile at any given moment that would melt away any hateful words that just came out of her beautiful mouth. She was the girl who had everyone thinking that she’d be someone really, really incredible one day.
In Paramount Pictures new film Young Adult, Charlize Theron convincingly nails her role as Mavis Gary, the Gen-X high-school “it” girl now starting her reluctant (or oblivious) journey into middle age. Sure, she’s often witty and fun, but she’s mostly irritable, irrational and downright unsavory. Without giving too much away, here is the rundown…
As the movie begins, we visit Mavis in her high-rise apartment in Minneapolis, Minnesota. What might be a dream space for some people is quickly downplayed with images of empty liquor bottles and a neglected dog. While Mavis craves growth in her career, she has been stuck as a ghost writer for Young Adult (YA) novels, penning stories about characters created by someone else. Sadly, she has created something – an unhealthy, unrealistic emotional bubble, where she’s drowning in depression and alcoholism.
While her behavior makes for a lot of laughs in the beginning, it sets up your ride for what happens later in the film. Mavis receives a birth announcement from an old classmate, Beth (played by Elizabeth Reaser), who happens to be the wife of her first love, Buddy (played by Patrick Wilson).
Mavis obsesses over the email, or rather a janky print-out of the baby’s photo, and decides she’s going back to claim her true love Buddy, because he’s obviously unhappy. Like, what kind of woman brazenly sends a birth announcement like that? Beth has to be ruining Buddy’s life, and Mavis is determined to save him! Not to mention that her book series is on its last leg, and there don’t appear to be many life options… so it only makes sense to right all of her past wrongs. Right?
So Mavis sets off for her small hometown, and upon running into another stuck-in-a-rut classmate, Matt (played by Patton Oswalt), begins to make a series of really bad choices.
The problem is that her bad choices are amplified by her drinking and extreme emotional immaturity, further marred by other issues that are revealed throughout the film. Mavis still thinks it’s acceptable to be that sassy bitch that she was 20 years ago, which might be true if she was lucid. Needless to say, things quickly go to hell in a handbasket in Mavis’s quest to get Buddy back.
In Young Adult, all of the characters around Mavis have endearing qualities – sweet, sensitive new dad Buddy; loving, open-minded wife Beth; shy, yet brutally honest loser Matt… Even Mavis’s clueless parents are likable, despite the denial about most of their daughter’s draining issues.
The only person you can’t begin to like is Mavis. Sure, she’s funny and crass, but you soon find out you’re laughing mostly at her, not with her. But should you feel guilty about that? Is Mavis really as crazy as she seems?
Between Diablo Cody‘s writing and the direction of Jason Reitman, the story of Mavis is something that will keep you thinking after you leave the theater. It’s a dark comedy that just about anyone can relate to, for better or worse, and well worth seeing.
In a recent press junket in NYC, we asked Diablo Cody, Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt what they would have done with the story had they been given another 10 minutes to further play out the ending. Patton seemed to enjoy the fact that it leaves you guessing, while Charlize joked that a sequel could be in order to see the next phase of Mavis.
Diablo Cody, however, stated that she’d have enjoyed adding some crazy credits or bloopers. That said, it’ll be on you to decide what happens to these characters next.
Watch the Young Adult trailer:
For more information on Young Adult, go to YoungAdultMovie.com
