YOUNG ADULT

YOUNG ADULT
Written by Diablo Cody
Directed by Jason Reitman
Starring Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt and Patrick Wilson

Buddy Slade: Mavis, I’m a married man.
Mavis Gary: I know. We can beat this thing together.

Mavis Gary (the always stunning, Charlize Theron) wakes up, it would seem, most days face down in her pillow, still wearing her makeup and heels from the previous night of debauchery. When she comes to, she immediately reaches for the nearest 2L bottle of Diet Coke she can find to give her the jolt she needs to get on with her day. After high school, she promptly exited her hick town, Mercury, in favor or the mini-apple, Minneapolis, to pursue a once thriving career in ghost writing young adult fiction. At 37 years old, Mavis is hardly young like the characters she writes about and knows best but after spending five minutes with her in Jason Reitman’s latest film, YOUNG ADULT, you’ll see that calling her adult is sometimes an even bigger stretch.

If you pointed out what a mess she was, I seriously doubt Mavis would know what you were talking about. Actually, given the amount of attitude she usually carries in her demeanor, I’m thinking she would probably punch you in the face for the suggestion. As constructed by Diablo Cody, who last collaborated with Reitman on the contemporary classic, JUNO, Mavis is quite simply unlikable and Theron is perfectly cast in the part. She is strikingly beautiful and therefore has always had an easy time getting what she wants but despite her soft features, she is about as callous as they come. Theron is unapologetic as Mavis, determined in her resolve no matter how misguided it is and no matter whom she takes down along the way. Yet she still reveals enough of that once young adult inside of her to give the audience some insight into how she came to be this person.

Compared to past Reitman films, like UP IN THE AIR and THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, YOUNG ADULT is by far his prickliest pear. It’s humour is decidedly darker in tone and it isn’t easy to forgive his heroine her actions, regardless what damage inspired them. Mavis returns home under the guise of a real estate transaction to essentially “save” her college boyfriend (Patrick Wilson) from his supposed death trap of a marriage despite his first child just being born. (In fact, the baby is the catalyst for her decision.) In doing so, the high school prom queen befriends the hapless high school loser (an endearing and impressive, Patton Oswalt) and the two form an unlikely friendship that holds a mirror up to both of their issues. Their chemistry is so unexpected and natural that it gives YOUNG ADULT exactly what it needs to mature into the film it was always meant to be - a modern exploration of how growing up can be a lifelong process.

INSIDIOUS

Written by Leigh Wannell

Directed by James Wan

Starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne and Barbra Hershey

I hate to be the guy who does this but as I had to look it up before watching the movie, I feel justified in saying that if you look up “insidious” in the dictionary, you will learn that it means proceeding in a gradual, subtle way but with harmful effects. And so INSIDIOUS, director James Wan’s first hit since he exploded in blood-soaked glory onto the horror scene with SAW in 2004, is aptly named. Wan slowly draws you into his hyper-stylized haunted house and those harmful effects I mentioned, they begin to take hold.

The trouble with paranormal based horror films is that their build is usually intense and potentially brilliant but their reveal is ordinarily ridiculous. INSIDIOUS begins with great promise. The low lighting, bizarre imagery and frighteningly sharp score pull you into the nervous energy that permeates the walls of the house in question. A new family has just moved in and the lack of familiarity itself is a device to cause more anxiety in the characters. Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne play parents to young Dalton (Ty Simpkins), who has seemingly fallen into a coma after a mysterious experience in the attic. As it turns out though, it is Dalton, and not the house, that is haunted and unfortunately, the means with which Dalton’s rescue is orchestrated, which I will not spoil for you here, change the tone of the film so greatly that the subtlety required for it to live up to its name is all but lost completely.

That said, just because I wasn’t convinced does not mean that many believers out there will not be fully taken with INSIDIOUS. When it comes to the paranormal, you either believe or you don’t and it should be the filmmaker’s job to change the mind of even the most ardent of non-believer. While that didn’t happen for me here, I can say that the film gave me chills on more than one occasion. In fact, I had to distract myself when watching, which could mean that I’m not at all interested but in this case, it just meant that I was too scared to look.