Young Adult
Directed By:
Jason Reitman
Written By:
Diablo Cody
Starring:
Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt, Patrick Wilson, Elizabeth Reaser, and Collette
Wolfe.
Director of Photography: Eric Steelberg, Editor: Dana E.
Glauberman, Production Designer: Kevin Thompson, Original Music: Rolfe Kent
Rated: R for
nasty humor from a nasty woman.
This post has been edited for a correction to a beverage the main character drinks. It is Diet Coke, not Diet Pepsi.
This post has been edited for a correction to a beverage the main character drinks. It is Diet Coke, not Diet Pepsi.
In
her Oscar-winning role for Monster,
Chalize Theron took her gorgeous and beautiful body and made herself ugly,
gaining 30 pounds and wearing prosthetic teeth. Oscar loves to reward actresses
who do something “daring,” meaning they are willing to look ugly for the camera
while dolled up when it comes to the red carpet. But now comes Young Adult with Ms. Theron doing
something actually daring. She’s often very beautiful in the film, dolled up
with radiant locks of golden hair and glittering skin. But even more than Monster, Ms. Theron plays a character
who is ugly on the inside: an alcoholic, devilish, and disaster of a woman with
nothing much resembling a soul.
And
that’s the conceit of Young Adult,
the new film from director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody. When these two
last paired, they brought us something sweet (perhaps too sweet) with Juno, but Young Adult couldn’t be tonally more didactic. Here’s a film that is
reckless in its ambition to bring us into a character that delights in the
pleasures of personal vengeance and contempt for simplicity. Ms. Cody has
explained in interviews that Young Adult
has somewhat personal connections, but in many ways, it’s a universal film for
all of us who have ever left our hometowns, and want nothing more than to go
back someday and slap them all across the face.
