When you have a wife and a new baby and are holding a breast milk pump in your hand, how do you respond when an old flame turns up at the door and expects you to drop everything and run off to Minneapolis with her?
The impossibilities of Mavis' behavior in "Young Adult" require some sort of cushioning, and the film wisely provides the character of Matt Freehauf, played by the comedian Patton Oswalt. Matt and Mavis had nothing to do with each other in high school. She is never the soul of tact. Yes, Matt was nearly killed in a gay-bashing incident in high school, despite the inconvenience that he is not gay.
Now he still lives in Mercury with his sister, stuck on pause. His experience has given him insight into pariahs, and he immediately realizes Mavis is nose-diving into disaster. What Matt knows while Mavis remains clueless is that Buddy is perfectly happy with Beth and their baby, and shudders when he sees Mavis approaching.
Patton Oswalt is, in a way, the key to the film's success. Theron is flawless at playing a cringe-inducing monster and Wilson touching as a nice guy who hates to offend her, but the audience needs a point of entry, a character we can identify with, and Oswalt's Matt is human, realistic, sardonic and self-deprecating.
He speaks truth to Mavis. Though he's had many supporting parts, this is only Oswalt's second major role; he was wonderful a few years ago in " Big Fan ," the story of a loser who lived through his fantasy alter ego as a "regular caller" to sports talk radio. Patton Oswalt is a very particular actor, who is indispensable in the right role, and I suspect Reitman and his casting director saw him in "Big Fan" and made an inspired connection with Matt.
As for Mavis, there's an elephant in the room: She's an alcoholic. Anyone who says that knows damn well they are. But civilians and some of the critics writing about this film are slow to recognize alcoholism. On the basis of what we see her drinking on the screen, she must be more or less drunk in every scene. She drinks a lot of bourbon neat.
I've noticed a trend in recent movies: Few characters have mixed drinks anymore. It's always one or two fingers, or four or five, of straight booze in a glass. Alcoholism explains a lot of things: her single status, her disheveled apartment, her current writer's block, her lack of self-knowledge, her denial, her inappropriate behavior.
Diablo Cody was wise to include it; without such a context, Mavis would simply be insane. In school, he was beaten and crippled by a bunch of jocks who thought he was gay. The movie goes further than you imagine it will go, into bitter areas of alienation and even cosmic depression. Well, she is, but is she wrong about Mercury?
Apart from Matt, no one in the town has a spark. The movie was shot not in Minnesota but in White Plains and central Long Island, which only reinforces the point that so much of the country looks the same, feels the same.
But are Cody and Reitman too clever by half? Have they loaded the case? Funny on the surface, but emotionally complex on the inside. This is a brilliant psychological analysis set in the lesser known American Midwest. Watching this as I post right now! I love the cast, the movie is good actually so far. About 20 minutes left, so I think I'm safe to have my opinion.
LOL But yes, a different movie finally! So close to real life. I've seen stuff like this for real. So, yes credit is positive on this film! Yeah, I guess Charlize is pretty amazing… even if she is a total mess! Kind of what a lot of people experience when they move away from their rural hometown to a big city! Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. I am Sonja, the founder and editor of FilmFanTravel. If you don't find me there, I am probably travelling the world in order to trace my favourite film locations and film settings.
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