Charlize Theron is a terrific actress and a beautiful woman. She also seems to have a great deal of courage, which she displays in “Young Adult,” opening here today. The movie, another collaboration of writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman, who are responsible for the delightful “Juno” of a few years ago. It’s tight and well-made, but the standard Hollywood star never would accept the role, much less seek it.
Theron is Mavis Gary, a well-to-do writer who lives in lovely digs in Minneapolis, is in her mid-30s, successful and gorgeous. But she’s bored. She is not in a relationship and she misses the glory days when she was the most popular girl in high school in Mercury, Minn.
So Mavis, showing that she has matured emotionally hardly at all in the past 20 years, decides to return to Mercury and look up her old high school beau, Buddy (Patrick Wilson), apparently not realizing that he might have found other interests. The town is small enough, and apparently has not grown either, that she finds him first thing. Well, he’s married, which Mavis knew, and he has a brand-new son, which she didn’t.
None of those things bother Mavis, and she sets off to reclaim Buddy, as if she merely had checked his warm body, perhaps thinking it’s just an overcoat, with Buddy’s wife, Beth (Elizabeth Reaser). This is not normal behavior for a Hollywood star, unless we’re in the type of movie where Mavis is kidnapped by extra-terrestrials and turned into a vampire, or a mongoose.
Hollywood stars don’t go in for that sort of thing. They’re nice, and generally loyal.
Theron, still searching for something, finds some relief in a bourbon bottle with Matt (excellent work by Patton Oswalt), who distills his own. There’s no question that Matt and Mavis were not fated to be high school chums. He definitely was the class geek, and besides, he missed a lot school after absorbing a savage beating by classmates. Mavis would neveer have been aware.
“Young Adult” is an interesting tale, blunt and without a vanilla coating.
Young Adult opens today at several theaters
— Joe