December 28, 2011

Movie Review: Young Adult

If you like beautiful but hateful protagonists, Young Adult is your movie. Charlize
Theron is Mavis Gray, who goes back to her childhood home to seduce her now-happily-married-and-expecting-a-baby ex-boyfriend. If that seems like a funny concept, go see this movie.
Diablo Cody wrote the exceptional Juno. That was a sweet and funny film with flawed characters that you liked. Not so here. Mavis's flaws are sad and despicable. There's no rooting for her, even though she's spectacularly gorgeous.

Then there's the former classmate she hooks up with. "Oh, you're that hate crime guy," she says. He was brutally beaten as a kid for being gay, although he wasn't and isn't. Now his legs and penis don't work quite right, and to top it off people still think he's gay. And if that's not distasteful enough we have to hear about his dysfunctional dick (sorry) way too many times. It made me cringe.
You can see this coming for miles but this is a spoiler alert - he and Mavis get together, sexually, which doesn't work on any level, but the scene just comes and goes (thank god), and we never know if she 'healed' him.
The more I write the more I dislike this movie. My recommendation? Take a pass.
One out of five stars for Young Adult.

2 comments:

LSC said...

Thanks for saving us from wasting time on this one. Your reviews are usually spot on. Happy New Year.

Samantha Hoffman said...

Thanks!