Despite its somewhat dour approach, Young Adult is a funny and ultimately powerful no-holds-barred examination of prolonged adolescence, thanks largely to a convincing performance by Charlize Theron. Read critic reviews
Young Adult
2011, Comedy/Drama, 1h 34m
199 Reviews 25,000+ RatingsWhat to know
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Movie Info
Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) is a successful writer of teen literature who returns to her hometown with a dual mission: to relive her glory days and steal away her now-married high-school sweetheart (Patrick Wilson). However, her mission does not go exactly to plan, and she finds her homecoming more problematic than she expected. Instead, Mavis forms an unusual bond with a former classmate (Patton Oswalt), who has also found it difficult to move past high school.
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Rating: R (Some Sexual Content|Language)
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Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
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Original Language: English
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Director: Jason Reitman
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Producer: Lianne Halfon, Russell Smith, Diablo Cody, Mason Novick, Jason Reitman
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Writer: Diablo Cody
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Release Date (Theaters): wide
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Release Date (Streaming):
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Box Office (Gross USA): $16.3M
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Runtime:
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Distributor: Paramount Pictures
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Critic Reviews for Young Adult
Audience Reviews for Young Adult
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<i>"What the hell are you talking about??" "We can work things out, you know that, we can be adults about this." "Mavis, I'm a married man." "I know, and we can get past it, together."</i> Surehanded direction from the younger Reitman follows the unfulfilled ghost author of a successful teen fiction series back to her smalltown roots as she attempts to win back her highschool sweetheart. One stumbling block - he's happily marred with a newborn daughter! Charlize Theron can disappear into a character as well as anyone and deserved her Oscar nomination here. As Mavis Gary she carries an air of aloof surperiority, but is not without self-awareness about her flaws and pitiable.
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This is an excellent film with some excellent writing and a fantastic performances from their leads. The strength of the script lies in the fact that some people simply don't change, or they simply refuse to. That may lead many to be disappointed in the film since you do get to see this character of Mavis Gary be, quite frankly, the biggest bitch she can be to everybody around here, trying to break up a happily married man from his wife, thinking of herself as the biggest thing to ever hit Mercury despite her life being utterly boring. What with watching the Kardashians all day, so there's some part of you that would like to see her change. But it's refreshing to see a film where a character goes on being selfish, I think it takes a lot of balls. And Charlize Theron is more than up to the task of becoming this complete and utterly unlikable character. She's incredible in the role and was incredibly convincing at playing this woman who, for some reason or another, is still stuck in her high school days. She hasn't grown up because she doesn't want to and it's an interesting character to watch and to see where her actions take her. It's interesting to see how the book she's writing is influenced by the events in her real life and how she distorts everything to suit her own ego in the book. The movie is also very funny, but it's not a laugh-out-loud kind of funny. It's just funny seeing the lengths to which Mavis goes to cause harm to good people. As mentioned the writing is excellent, it is sharp and clever. I also enjoyed Patton and Charlize's scenes together because they do have an antagonistic chemistry with each other, yet for some reason they still like each other...in a strange way. Patton Oswalt does a great job too, but it's really the Charlize Theron show. She is simply incredible, really. Of course the writing is still tremendous, but without a convincing lead performance, which Charlize more than delivered on, the film wouldn't have been nearly as good. It's not going to be everybody's cup of tea due to its darker themes, but I really loved this film.
jesse o Super Reviewer -
A very depressing and horrible film, which has some how drawn me and involved me into it's world. Mavis is such a horrible, uncaring and unchanging character, but something makes me love her and hope that she'll sort herself out one day.
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The story of a woman who sets out to ruin a guy's marriage. Charmless bilge.
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