Young Adult
From the current issue of Clash.
The Juno creative team of director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody have reunited for Young Adult. Its central mass of contradictions is Mavis (Charlize Theron) who has everything (a glamorous life in the city and an enviable career as an author) yet who really has nothing (her life is a walking disaster, her career is less credible as a ghostwriter of teen fiction). She heads back to small town life – the scene of her teenage triumphs – in an attempt to win back her old boyfriend, the now mature new father Buddy (Patrick Wilson).
While Young Adult’s dialogue isn’t as caustically exuberant as that of Juno, Diablo has again succeeded in crafting quotable characters who somehow delicately find the correct equilibrium between odd and believable. The biggest difference is that Young Adult’s comedic tone is much darker; most of the laughs come from Mavis’s cringeworthy inability to realise that life has moved sedately on without her.
Topped with alt rock hits, indie blokes of a certain vintage will relish Theron repeatedly singing Teenage Fanclub’s The Concept, but this is dark yet accessible comedy ideal for those who always had an innate dislike of their school’s popular clique.
