This opening sequence rings so true, feels drawn from the
experience of a working writer and embellished (maybe) for her character. We
know what kind of person Mavis is right away, and even if we didn’t, it’s made
clear when she opens a mass email from her high school boyfriend (Patrick
Wilson) and his wife (Elizabeth Reaser) announcing the birth of their first
child. She decides that her long-ago ex must be miserable. Knowing that she can
technically work from anywhere, she packs a bag and leaves Minneapolis for her
small hometown, determined to fix her life by getting back with her high school
boyfriend.
Once back in town, she’s acutely reminded of all the reasons
why she needed to escape in the first place. Her parents (Jill Eikenberry and
Richard Bekins) still hang a picture of her ex-husband on the wall. Her old
boyfriend is far from miserable. Some of her old high school acquaintances view
the return of the “psycho prom queen bitch” (their words) with skepticism. And
the only old classmate who will actually talk with her, the only one she can
actually open up to, is the bullied, beaten, nerd (Patton Oswalt) who now lives
a quiet, simple life, his only regular source of social interaction his sweet
sister (Collette Wolfe).
The film walks a tricky line; Mavis is a monstrous social
creature and yet oddly sympathetic as well. (It also may be a film covertly, or
maybe even not so covertly, about an alcoholic, a manic-depressive, or both). She
feels her life entering a dead end, and that’s painful, but the way she
awkwardly grasps at the last remaining connections to the seemingly happy,
popular, teenage girl she once was is sad, pathetic, and horrifying in a
compelling, even occasionally endearing, way. Maybe, just maybe, she’ll realize
that as she got older, she never really matured. The movie’s smart enough to
know that such a shift may take time, more time than the narrative of the film
allows, but it’s a film open ever so slightly to the possibility of change.
The director here is Jason Reitman. His adeptness with
juggling ensembles can certainly be felt in the uniformly excellent cast who
breathe life into the clever script. Reitman collaborated with Cody previously
on Juno, a film of too-cute
quirkiness and affectations that nonetheless gained some amount of very real
charm and emotional power with a sure directorial hand, even if it’s perhaps
one of too-slick shagginess, and an impressive cast. Young Adult, on the other hand, is a deconstruction of affectations
and the characters, though less appealing, are no less relatable, which is why
the film feels so much more savage in its satirical aims.
It’s the anti-Juno.
In that film, the pregnant-teen protagonist’s outsider persona is embraced by
those who love her; the cutting quips in her narration can be poisoned-dart
punchlines. Here, Mavis is constantly either preparing to go out, placing the
final touches on her persona, or dressing down in a casual carelessness when
she knows she’ll be alone. She uses her outsider persona as a shield, behind
which she fires harsh, judgmental potshots. She wants to make a connection with
someone, anyone, but at the same time seems scared to try. Her whiplash shifts
between harshly disparaging and cringingly needy are emotional time bombs.
The film itself strikes a nice ambivalent tone. Sometimes –
okay, rarely – Mavis makes some kind of sense; we want to root for her. But her
apparent obliviousness to her baseline social discomfort is so excruciating. By
the time the film starts to slowly, painfully let the air leak out of her
self-centered worldview, the fun starts to go with it. By the end, I was more
interested the entertained, but Mavis Gary remained one of the most fascinating
characters of 2011.
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