GRADE: C-

To start, I will put it all out on the table and admit that I do not like Diablo Cody as a screenwriter. I’ve said it in the past, but I think it’s important to identify bias. Juno was ok, but I didn’t praise it like so many. Jennifer’s Body was ok, and I actually didn’t hate it as much as many. The thing that stood out to me as a weakness in all three of these films was the screenplay — Juno definitely was the best of Cody’s efforts.

Jennifer’s Body presents a beautiful popular cheerleader bitch played by Megan Fox — Young Adult has the aged, but not grown up, more mature version of this bitch. They aren’t the same character, but they are of the same narcissistic mold. And I don’t love watching that character-type.

In Jennifer’s Body, the protagonist of the story is Amanda Seyfried and the antagonist is Fox’s bratty character. So the hatred of this self-love is justified. In Young Adult, Charlize Theron is the protagonist Mavis, if you can even call her that — the film gives almost no reason for you to like her. Her goal is to return to her small hometown in Minnesota, which she treats like a wasteland of losers, to steal her high school sweetheart away from his wife and newborn child.

The few who treat Mavis decently, she does not return any sort of kindness or respect. Patton Oswalt’s character Matt reaches out to her, advises her against her ambitious plan, and even consoles her when she is broken. How does she return the favor? By insulting his disfigurement brought on by a hate crime, using him for alcohol, dismissing him in public as if he’s a loser cramping her style, and most of all leaving to return home to Minneapolis in the morning without even saying goodbye after he spent the night trying to be there when she needed it.

Mavis is so irresponsible, she neglects her small dog leaving it trapped in her hotel room overnight as she goes out and gets hammered — well, one night she did drive home, but drunk enough to ram her car into a pole. Real commendable. She spends the entirety of the film looking down on everyone and thinking of herself as the same popular girl from high school. It’s disgusting.

Not all central figures in narratives need to be morally sound or have a squeaky clean persona. Take Gregory House for example, he is a similar narcissistic character who only really cares about his work and himself. But he still has redeeming features, like the occasional soft spot and his brilliance in the field of medicine. Mavis literally has no upside — she’s a drunk, she has no respect for people, especially her parents, she attempts beyond reason to be a home wrecker, she’s mean to animals (haha), and she’s so full of herself despite really accomplishing very little with her life. Even the name Mavis is ugly.

Now to speak of the positives from Young Adult which mostly stem from Jason Reitman’s directing and Theron’s work as this despicable character. I love Reitman’s visual style and his ability to use his shots to reveal intimate details about the characters within his films. And as anyone who watches movies should know, Theron has no problem playing a Monster — see what I did there? Despite me disliking the written character, Theron was excellent in the role.

Sure there are some laughs, but this borders on being more of a drama. I did laugh at times, but that all will depend on how much Mavis appeals to you.

Overall, Young Adult had successes as noted above, but I honestly cannot take a whole lot of pleasure watching someone like this for an hour and a half. I would never want to talk to Mavis, much less watch her for a length of time. By the end there are really no redeeming qualities about her, and we are just supposed to accept her as an extremely flawed character. Not that the movie has to fit the mold of mainstream film, and by the end Mavis has to be enlightened to sainthood or become a humanitarian. But without any instrument for change one asks, “What was the point?” Not my cup of tea.

 What Should You Do? I wouldn’t recommend Young Adult, but Rotten Tomatoes seems to differ. The film is standing at Certified Fresh and an 81% approval rating.

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 SPOILERS

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At the end of the film, Mavis throws herself at Matt. She is defeated, the chord has been struck, her plan will not work and she needs to change. This is where the third act should have begun. The audience is shown the visual symmetry from the morning after when the man she just slept with has his arm on her — the same shot from the beginning of the film. But she again gets out of bed without waking her partner and leaves the same without even a word of goodbye to Matt, a man who had treated her so well. I’m not saying the two had to begin dating and live happily ever after, but she could show him the decency to say goodbye.

While this could be Mavis’ parents in denial, it was extremely sad to see them brush off a statement like “I’m an alcoholic” when Mavis half heartedly confesses she has a problem. They don’t even give it a thought. No wonder she turned out to be a terrible person with parents like that.

Mavis tries so desperately to relive the past, which we see clearly did not work. But at the end Collette Wolfe’s character Sandra reinforces all this terrible behavior. Sandra tells Mavis she idolizes her and how big of a star Mavis is. At this moment I thought, ‘Is Mavis supposed to be Diablo Cody, and is this how she thinks about herself?’ This talk with Sandra sends Mavis right back on her high horse as she proceeds to not even thank Sandra for the compliments, and tells her she isn’t “cool” enough to live in the “big” city of Minneapolis. It sent Mavis back to square one, the same horrible person she was at the beginning. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back, making me dislike the movie. That really was the breaking point for me. Up until that point I could have taken the film as a success, and I was going to give it a B-. But then this ending destroyed it for me and made me forever dislike Mavis. Is that really the point of this film?

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @matthewdeery