Review of Young Adult (2011) by Alex S — 29 Sep 2013

An antidote to all those films in which a shallow city person comes back to the old hometown and the simple ways of those they left behind save them from self-destruction. Instead, we find out that the people back home are even crazier for not admitting their toxicity.

It's a brave film to be this bleak, and Charlize Theron puts in a whopper of a performance as self-obsessed, delusional Mavis (and Patton Oswalt as an old-high-school classmate who becomes the only person who can tell the truth)-- but it's unclear if Young Adult's braveness ultimately wields any insights.