In Young Adult, Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) is in a rut, she has been recently divorced and find herself unable to finish the last book on her once popular young adult series. She attempts to drown her frustration and somewhat depressive demeanour with alcohol, but once she receives an e-mail of the newborn of her high school ex-boyfriend named Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson) she formulates a plan to find happiness. She travels back to her hometown with the goal of rekindling her love and relationship with Buddy who is currently married and with a kid.

Unlikeable characters are always a tough sell, especially when such a character is none other than the protagonist. It has become evident that characters who display arrogance, selfishness and hurt others will be subjected to scorn and even dictate from the audience. Even if the films portray them as humanistic and provides for some kind of empathy to be achieved, there are still some people who would rather never spend another 2 hours with them, case in point: the people that disliked The Social Network because Mark Zuckerberg was too much of a betraying asshole. That is why I believe that your reactions to characters such as these reveals much more about the type of person you are.

Charlize Theron’s Mavis is a totally selfish and arrogant bitch. If you are not up to her standards she will insult you without reservations and call bullshit on your touchy feelings. However, Young Adult has succeeded at least in my opinion in adequately showcasing why this character is the way she is. I empathized with her, because even though she is an insane cunt there is a longing for happiness beneath that veil of distaste. She’s a flawed character who simply wants relive the best days of her life. Perhaps her way of doing that are cruel and socially unacceptable, but that’s the only way she knows how and it is until she crashes and burns that she finally grows up. It’s hard to empathize with her, but once you do the experience of watching Young Adult is much more fulfilling and interesting.

It would wrong to say that the greatness of this film is thanks to Charlize Theron. Her performance is brilliant and the way she glares at people is both intimidating and hilarious. It’s refreshing to see such careless and unapologetic character, and Theron is able to give her a depth that a lesser actress would’ve never achieved. But another reason why her performance works so well is because of Diablo Cody’s great screenplay and Jason Reitman’s direction. Cody proves yet again that she has unique knack with dialogue and with created incredibly awkward and hurtfully honest situations. Reitman also proves why he is so great, his direction is precise and is full on board on making you cringe at the various situations and presenting you with a different experience.

Young Adult is definitely not a film for everyone. For those who expected the happy-go-lucky and quirky character that Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman delivered in Juno they are going to be extremely disappointed. This film does not give a fuck about quirkiness or innocent character, instead it showcases a truly deposable character that mostly everyone seems to hate. Theron performance is perfect in conveying that sense of arrogance and down right cruelty. However, even with such dislikable traits this film is very humanistic and honest, and by far one of the most interesting things everyone involved has done in a while.

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