Young Adult: movie review

Release date: 3 February 2012
Certificate: 15
Director: Jason Reitman
Starring: Charlize Theron, Patrick Wilson, Patton Oswalt

What's the story?
Teen author Mavis Gary (Theron) heads back to her home town determined to reclaim high school beau Buddy (Wilson), now happily married. Is she a hopeless romantic or hopelessly demented?

What did we think?
Bizarrely left out of this year's awards race, Young Adult may ultimately be too bitter a pill for some audiences to swallow. Yet it's worth catching for Theron's uninhibited performance, not to mention an endearing turn from stand-up comedian Patton Oswalt as an ex-classmate with his own axe to grind.

Charlize Theron may have been shut out of the Oscar running, but the latest film from director Jason Reitman hasn't been completely cold-shouldered by this year's awards bodies. Which begs the question: if Pomeranian star Hummer does win a Golden Collar award for best dog in a theatrical film, will they put it on the poster?

With Reitman behind the camera, Theron in front of it and Juno's screenwriter Diablo Cody putting words in her mouth, you'd think Young Adult would have been greeted more favourably by the Academy voters. That it wasn't may be down to its astringent, cutting feel, its defiantly unsympathetic heroine and its stubborn refusal to play nice - not characteristics likely to endear a movie to that organisation's largely conservative membership.

In years to come, however, we wouldn't be surprised to see it belatedly celebrated for bravely swimming against the feel-good tide - typified by cuddly Oscar favourite The Artist - with its focus on a spiteful anti-heroine who doesn't see the error of her ways in time for the fade-out. Theron, meanwhile, deserves kudos for embracing her bitchy character with the same commitment she brought in Monster.

Verdict: Woman behaving badly.