Review of Young Adult (2011) by Citizencharlie — 03 Jan 2012

I always wondered what happened to that girl from high school. You know the one, her locker was right next to yours for four straight years, but she never knew your name. She spent more time staring into the pocket mirror attached to the inside of her locker than at any of her classmates. She was homecoming and prom queen, she was socially above the common man, and all she wanted to do was see your small town in her rearview mirror as she escaped to the big city after graduation. Luckily for us, director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody have reconnected (they first worked together on Juno) to let us know exactly what happened to that girl from high school.

Mavis (Charlize Theron) is now 37, lives in Minneapolis, and is a ghostwriter for a young adult series (think Sweet Valley High) whose popularity is in severe decline. She wakes up every morning severely hung over from the night before, ignores her pocket-sized dog, and always has a dating website open on her web browser while she attempts to writer her next chapter just in case she gets a notification of a potential match. In other words, Mavis is not doing very well. An unexpected e-mail shakes her out of her stumbling stupor one morning when a birth announcement arrives from her long ago high school ex-boyfriend Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson); he is now the father of a brand new baby girl.

Events are now set in motion as Mavis impulsively packs a suitcase, drives a few hours to her old and small hometown, and aims to break up Buddy and his wife Beth (Elizabeth Reaser). With no evidence whatsoever, Mavis just knows Buddy is unhappy in his marriage and longs to be rescued by the one girl he was meant to be with, Mavis. She considers the institution of marriage as a disease, a problem which can be cured through a quick divorce. Mavis also brings her old habits back to town with her; she continues to wake up slobbering drunk every morning, wears revealing clothes which would not only seem out of place in Minneapolis, but downright foreign in small town America, and whether intentionally or just plain out of habit, talks down condescendingly to anyone who never left town the way she did.

While guzzling one of her many double whiskeys at a local dive bar one night, Mavis runs into Matt (Patton Oswalt), a guy who she barely remembers from school.