Cinema Notes: Young Adult

After watching Juno, I wanted to put snakes in my ears so I never had to hear Diablo Cody’s version of teenspeak ever again. The inexplicable critical reception for Cody’s screenplay baffled me. So, you’ll understand why it pains me to say that her script for Young Adult is really pretty good. (That burned a little.) I wasn’t sure about director Jason Reitman after Juno, either, but he’s gone on to make films I greatly admire such as Up in the Air. With Young Adult, Reitman and Cody have delivered a refreshingly cynical (i.e., honest) comedy that dispenses with conventions as readily as Charlize Theron’s sociopathic character dispenses with tact. It’s basically a high wire character study, but without a net.

I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed Theron as much as I did here. Her character is built to be immensely unlikable, but her performance lets in just enough light so that, while we may not adore her, we begin to understand. Patton Oswalt is particularly good as Matt Hoffman, Theron’s nerdy confidant. I remember Oswalt joking on one of his records that movies will always need a fat best friend. While his character doesn’t quite fit that designation, Cody wrote one hell of a best friend role for him to explore.

Young Adult is a great film . . . damn it.