Butler's Cinema Scene

Charlize Theron...sizing up the competition

“YOUNG ADULT” My rating: B

94 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Young Adult” doesn’t always work. But it takes enough chances to be kind of endearing…sort of like a Christmas package with a bomb inside.

For their sophomore effort director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody — who hit indy film gold a couple of years back with their teen pregnancy laugher “Juno” — deliver another comedy, albeit one from a considerably darker place.

Charlize Theron, an Oscar winner who thus far hasn’t had many opportunities to exercise her comedy chops, stars as Mavis Gary, an

Patton Oswalt

anonymous writer of young adult fiction.

Mavis ghost writes titles for a series created by another, more famous author. Her career is a lot like her personal life — going nowhere fast.

At 37 she is recently divorced and lavishing whatever love she has to give (and there’s not much of it) on her fuzzy white lapdog.

The F word (for “failure”) is looming large in Mavis’ future, and she’s not handling it well. She’s still as beautiful as when she was a popular high school cheerleader and as far as Mavis is concerned, happiness is her birthright.

So why not return to those days of yesteryear? Mavis gets it into her head that her life will be perfect if she revisits her small home town (a 20-year-old mix tape blasting from the car stereo), hooks up with her high school boyfriend and gets a fresh start on this whole adult thing.

“Young Adult” is a comedy of selfishness. Mavis can’t see beyond her own pretty nose. For example, her old beau Buddy (Patrick Wilson) is happily married with a new baby daughter. Most of us would see this as an impediment and a moral obstacle, but not Mavis.

“Sometimes in order to heal,” she opines, “a few people have to get hurt.”

As for Buddy, he’s a not-particularly-bright guy totally in love with his wife (Elizabeth Reaser) and apparently oblivious to Mavis’ outrageous flirting.

Patrick Wilson

Running mental circles around both of them is classmate Matt (Patton Oswalt), an overgrown fanboy whose passion is hand painting superhero action figures. Despite being unmarried, pudgy and forced to move about with a cane or walker (he was the victim of a h.s. gay bashing incident — even though he isn’t gay), Matt has more self-awareness in his big toe than in all of Mavis’ curvy body.

He becomes her confidant and ironic sounding board (not that she even knows what irony is); hey, at least it gives him a chance to be near the dream girl of his adolescence.

Mavis’ stalking of Buddy is so singleminded and all-consuming that we know she’s heading for a big downfall. And it comes in a total meltdown at the christening of Buddy’s baby daughter.

But here’s the thing about Mavis…she doesn’t gain any knowledge. Maybe she’s incapable of it. Her notions of self-worth may be totally off base, but she clings to them religiously.

Most movies with the setup of “Young Adult” would allow their heroine to learn her lesson and become a better person. So it’s an act of no small bravery (or foolishness) on Cody’s part that this doesn’t happen. At film’s end Mavis is just as vain, self-centered and clueless as when we first met her. Who knows? Maybe that moral myopia will allow her to survive herself.

Well, nothing says a comedy has to end on an upbeat note. Still, “Young Adult” comes close to wearing out its welcome. Mavis is such an irredeemable bitch that after a while an audience’s attitude shifts from bemused observation to outright disgust.

It helps, of course, that Theron is one of the screen’s most beautiful actresses. Otherwise we’d burn out on the film a couple of reels sooner.

Saving things is Oswalt, who provides a bracing dose of sardonicism and bitter humor to leaven the proceedings. This standup comic/actor pretty much steals the show (do I smell an Oscar nomination?).

But even here Cody overplays her hand, making of Matt a physical wreck who 20 years later still finds his life defined by an attack by a bunch of Neanderthal football players. When Oswalt describes the impact of that incident on his life, “Young Adult” ceases to be a comedy. It’s more like a tragedy…and no laughing matter.

| Robert W. Butler