Grade: A-

Ever since Thank You For Smoking introduced us to the talent that is Jason Reitman (the son of ’80s comedy legend, Ivan Reitman), I’ve found myself more intrigued with his skill as a writer than a director. His follow-up feature, Juno, was a solid film as well, featuring an excellent script from Diablo Cody. But did Cody really possess writing talent that Juno hyped her up to, or was her style a one trick pony? And did Reitman really earn that director’s nomination in 2007? Had he not taken the job, executive producer Steven Spielberg might have directed the film. At the time, I felt that a very similar, if not better film would have been produced, given that hypothetical. And during this time, Reitman could have made a film from one of his own scripts, utilizing what I believed to be his prominent talent. Up in the Air proved his skill as a writer. Losing the Oscar to Precious was a painful upset for me to witness. What I didn’t realize was that Reitman’s quick-jolting directorial style has been present from the very beginning. I just didn’t notice it–or it seemed generic to me. But it isn’t. And as for Cody? Well, more on that later… With Young Adult, Reitman proves that he is a director at heart and Cody proves, against my predictions, that she is a talent to be reckoned with and her success on Juno was anything but a fluke.

By now you all know that Young Adult is a movie about an irredeemable bitch that, true to her character, does not get redeemed. Mavis, as played so charmingly by Charlize Theron, is totally ignorant of her own bitchiness. She is aware that she has problems, but can’t quite see what they are. Her social interpretation of everything around her is skewed based on her high school experience, a setting in which she was the queen bee. Right off the bat, we see that she is a disgusting, very American, artificial adult, living a teenage, or maybe college level life. It is in this sequence, pre-credits, that I became aware of Reitman’s detailed direction. So much characterization is of Mavis is given in the first few minutes of the film, without hardly any dialogue. The camera quickly cuts around, using door slams, key noises, and dog noises, to form a rythmic exposition of character movements. Reitman used a similar technique with Aaron Eckhart’s character in Thank You for Smoking and with George Clooney’s routine suitcase packing and airport maneuvering. With Mavis, these shots are mostly used with Cosmetics. There are running gags with both her hair and her finger nails. These brief snippets are often transitional for longer takes that sleekly engage the viewer  in intimate conversations that at once drop us closely into the interaction and keep us keenly aware of the environment. Each setting is significant in Young Adult, which leads me to confidently assert that it is Reitman’s tightest and most refined film.

Mavis was a hot-shot in high school. And she is quite hot, she’s Charlize Theron after all. When she gets an update from her high school ex, Buddy Slade, about how he just had a baby, she completely misreads it as a distress call. In her adult life, she writes young adult vampire novels in a series called Waverly Place, in which she naively relives high school from her own perspective. The writing of the final novel inevitably coincides with her own journey back home and consequently mirrors it. The fact that her life is still able to closely relate to a high schoolers should give you an idea of where her priorities lie. She still thinks it is cool to get drunk and create ridiculous drama in a shallow and misguided pursuit of finding a boyfriend, which is exactly what she does.

She leaves Minneapolis, Minnesota, and returns to her much smaller hometown, Mercury. Like the high schooler inside of her, she still holds to the stigma that the town is irredeemably lame. While it may not be for her, it works for many of its residents, including Buddy Slade. The central characteristic of Mavis is that she cannot see from anyone’s perspective other than her own.

The first night back, she goes to a bar and gets nicely drunk. At the bar, she is recognized by the fat kid that used to be locker neighbors with her in high school. She does not recognize him because he was fat in high school and therefor not worth any of her attention. She does remember him as the “hatecrime guy” though, because when he was beaten up by a bunch of jocks, that was the only time his gossip was worth her privelidged ears. Alas, Matt “the hatecrime guy” is the only one who shares her inhibition of being inable to move away from a past experience. Her’s was the perfect experience. His was the worst imaginable. But in their opposite extremes, they share a lingering history… and sensitive scars to prove it.

Mavis drunkenly confides in Matt what she is really in town for (the seduction of the happily married Buddy) and they pathetically become partners in pain. Their connection is at once charming and disturbing. And although Mavis is an irredeemable bitch and Matt is a very nice guy, we quickly see that Matt’s niceness comes with an unfortunate edge that is derived from a similar source. This relationship is what significantly elevates the film. It is no longer Mavis on her own fighting a disgusting uphill battle. Her central character flaw is not exclusive to preppy bitches. This makes the film universal. It draws  a parelel from opposites. And eventually, it extends that parelel to Matt’s sister. Two scenes define the film for me. One is the second to last scene of the film with Matt’s sister. And the other is a conversation that occurs when Mavis and Matt sink as low as drinking behind their high school. It is in these moments that the film finds its heart.

And that heart belongs to Diablo Cody. As much as I have criticized Jennifer’s Body and even Juno, here is a screenplay to die for. It comes with a few hicccups, no doubt (I’ll need to see it again to decide how I feel about her full-on confrontation with Buddy). But the narrative arc of the film, not redeeming its supposed protagonist, and pulling the rug out from under the only character who extends a sincere hand, are all considerable risks. And Cody pulls them off with flying colors. The comedy is edgy on a Curb Your Enthusiasm level and the dialogue is great (and more believable than Juno). It is daring and unconventional, and likely won’t sit well with mass audiences. But it sat well with me. It hit the nail right on the head, without missing many beats.

Alas, I’ve exhausted over a thousand words without even spilling my personal midwestern small-town escape connection to the film. Alex and Phil did a great job covering that in the podcast though. So I’ll just end by saying that I think it is a wonderfully accurate display of the distinctly midwestern culture. Unlike Juno, which technically takes place in the midwest, but seemingly could have happened anywhere, Young Adult is a film that breathes cultural intensity and effortlessly evokes (with notable ambiguity) the subtle yet disturbing charm of small midwestern towns.

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