Young Adult (2011)
A film with a truly terrible protagonist.
I’m amazed by how many films I go into knowing almost nothing about it — apparently I live in some media black hole though I love movies and films. Young Adult was one of those films that I knew almost nothing about. I knew it was directed by Jason Reitman, written by Diablo Cody, and starred Charlize Theron, and that was about it. I thought it would be some sort of coming of age film about an adult woman who, through a series of events, would end up growing out of her childish ways.
As expected, the audience meets the thoroughly unlikeable character, Mavis Gary. This ghostwriter was unsatisfied with her life, seeks validation and worth in being seen as successful, and has an incredible affinity for alienating people. To top it all off, her motivation and goal in the film is to win back her high school boyfriend whose wife just had a child. She believes that they are destined to be together and that she can move the hand of fate. Talk about a misguided and very flawed character!
Throughout the course of the film, I kept trying to find some redeeming quality for this character. I wanted there to be something that I could hang on to so I could feel some sort of empathy or sympathy for her. I wanted her parents to have been abusive or for there to be some sort of trauma that explained her behavior, but that didn’t come…
