Day 109: Young Adult

Depressed author Mavis (Charlize Theron) heads back to her home town to try and get back together with her high school boyfriend. He’s married and has a child now but Mavis seems to think of it as a challenge and that she will be saving him from a miserable life.

My number one feeling for the entire film was, uuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggggggghhhhhh. This could’ve been an interesting story but it just ended up being dreadful. Rather than perhaps explore the mental health problems that Mavis is dealing with, she just gets painted like this nutter who is trying to steal back her ex. We can see she is an alcoholic (or is definitely on the road to being one), and that she’s depressed, and we get quick glimpses of her having trichotillomania (when someone pulls their hair out). It would’ve been much more interesting to see her deal with those issues instead of what actually happened.

Mavis comes to town and phones Buddy (Patrick Wilson), her ex boyfriend, in the hopes that he will come out for a drink. It’s a bit difficult for him to just drop everything and come out now that he’s got a newborn baby but he says he’ll meet her the next day. In the meantime she sees Matt (Patton Oswalt) who went to her high school but who she never really paid much attention to because he was a nerd and she was popular. Over the course of the film the two spend quite a bit of time together; both are lonely and struggling to get past their high school lives and it has left them both bitter. He tries to get her to see that what she’s doing with Buddy isn’t right but she has convinced herself that Buddy wants to be with her. That is until she talks to Buddy, saying that they can take off to the city together and get away from his family life, and he shoots her down. He tells her that everyone just feels sorry for her and that he didn’t even want to see her but his wife made him because she felt bad. Mavis is obviously hurt and she heads over to see Matt and then they have sex. Right, no. He knew how hurt she was and he just has sex with her? Noooope. That is called taking advantage. I get the feeling we’re supposed to like Matt but that plan was blown out the water when he thought it’d be a good idea to sleep with someone who is clearly going through a hard time. Anyway. She then gets a little pep talk from Matt’s sister who seems to be harbouring some love for her (or I just see lady love everywhere, who knows) and she heads off back to the city. But it’s not like she’s learned anything, she hasn’t come away from this knowing what she did was wrong or any of that. It’s more like she thinks she’s better than them and to just forget the place. There is no point in this fiiiillm aaargh.

I’m frustrated by the film’s pointlessness and boring plot. And the acting was hardly stellar either, which is odd considering the cast. And I hate that I'm now saying 'adult' like how Americans say it, god sake. Nothing has gone right here.

3/10