Review of Young Adult (2011) by Yu T — 02 Jul 2012

Jason Reitman has a potential career-best film here with 2011's feel-bad comedy Young Adult. The film follows Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron), a depressed author of young adult fiction who gets an invitation to her high school boyfriend's baby shower.

This sets her off into a half-delusional fit of rage, in which she is convinced she is going to win him back, despite being happily married and a new father. With another career-best script by Diablo Cody (it should be noted this film is much less pretentious, and as a result, much less annoying, than Reitman and Cody's previous collaboration, 2007's over-hyped so-quirky-it-hurts Juno), the film is marketed as a comedy but has moments of searing sadness.

As a disabled man who has virtually no prospects for the future, comedian Patton Oswalt is terrific, and very, very moving. But let's face it, there's one reason to see Young Adult, and it's for Charlize Theron's unbelievably good performance.

Mavis Gary basically has no redeeming qualities--simply put, she's a bitch, and the film makes no pretense otherwise. She's a woman going through deep depression, and something isn't quite connected in her brain, but she's still an awful human being at the core, and Theron's unflinching, fully committed performance is what makes the film.

She really was robbed of an Oscar nomination.