Like the car that she wrecks half way through the movie, Young Adult's Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) is one dented, mashed up, and utterly fucked up character...and the collisions never let up. And you, poor sap, are the rubbernecking asshole who gets to watch the whole thing unfold. So be warned, it is a difficult to watch/impossible not to watch bruising, bleak, and brave character study (study might be the wrong word, more like character vivisection).
The devil is in the details, and it is in the delicious details that writer Diablo Cody's hell spawn emerges. Mavis is a 30-something struggling author (YA ghost writer for a cancelled series) living in a second rate city (Minneapolis) addicted to mani-pedis, juicy couture, the Kardashians, and...oh yeah...pulling out her hair (it's called trichtillomania and it is real). Cody's script offers Theron an abundance of tiny, specific moments to leech out Mavis' inner depravity: she spits into her printer cartridge to get that last bit of toner out, chugs 2 liter diet coke bottles in the morning post hangover (that one hits a bit too close to home), and lives on a steady diet of Kentacohut (that would be the Cerberus of the fast food underworld).
So clearly the audience gets who the dysfunctional "young adult" is: it's the "psychotic prom queen bitch" as one character eloquently puts it who returns to her suburban past to reclaim those teenage glory days and her old flame, new parent and devoted husband Buddy (Patrick Wilson). Even her job as a Sweet Valley High-esque writer requires her to use the emotional vocabulary of a seventeen year old. And if this all seems a little too on the nose and one note, with THEME resurfacing like a stubborn pop up ad, it works because Mavis' underlying psychology is complex. Screenwriter Diablo Cody is not aiming for subtlety here. It may be a simple and commercial concept, but it's explored in a deliciously wicked way.
To wit, we periodically get bits of voice over whenever Mavis is working on the series final entry, a novel whose plot points she borrows from her week at home, just substituting a more juvenile setting. Her writing becomes a proxy diary, but one that allows Mavis to project. And while it's pretty funny hearing the character self-dramatize in this way, it's never quite clear how self-aware she is. The smothering denial she swaddles her psyche in is pretty powerful...and hilarious (her reaction to Buddy being a dad? "I'm cool with it. I mean I've got baggage too").
The only one standing in between Mavis and these husband-stealing delusions is her former high school classmate Matt (Patton Oswalt), another stunted adult who acts as a foil for Mavis. If she conceals her infantilism with lacquered nails and pin in hair attachments, Matt wears his high school trauma visibly and literally, his development arrested by a vicious senior year hate crime. He lives at home with his sister and is dedicated to the man-boy hobbies of scifi/fantasy miniature model painting and garage brewing bourbon. He infuses the role with aching vulnerability tempered by a caustic wit in a nicely nuanced performance.
Along with the work of the supporting players, the world that the director and dp establish do much service to highlight Theron's work. The bleakness is captured so well, from the groggy morning scenes in Mavis' Minneapolis apartment to the fluorescent lit cheapness of her Hampton Inn hotel room. You almost feel guilt for the voyeuristic pleasures afforded the audience at the expense of this manipulative bitch.
The film builds to a nightmarish public melt-down. Though inevitable given the trajectory this woman has set for herself, it's not any easier to watch. In the trend of bad girl movies, Mavis Gary stands out as the most naked, stripped to her ugly innards, no airbrushing her crazy. It's not Kristen Wiig's chocolate fountain breakdown from Bridesmaids. Nor does Mavis have any of the self-awareness of Cameron Diaz in Bad Teacher.
By embraces the character's ugliness, Theron's performance becomes the centerpiece of the movie. She somehow comes off not judging her character, making her at times sympathetic. I couldn't help but think this movie could pretty easily have been titled Monster. Theron is an actress who thrives on that juxtaposition of extreme beauty and extreme loathing, making me all the more excited for her take on the evil queen in Snow White and the Huntsman. Undoubtedly Netflix worthy!
No comments:
Post a Comment