‘Tis the season of all the major hyped movies. “Mission Impossible” with Tom Cruise and “Sherlock Holmes” with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law (to name a couple,) will grab most of the headlines but neither will be nominated for anything. “Young Adult” on the other hand wont get much press but guaranteed that two of its actors will get nominations.
Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt are both fantastic. Theron, for all her success, is one of the most under-rated actresses in her profession. Yes she has already won one Academy Award but she goes about her work with little fan fare. In this movie she plays a single woman in her mid thirties, who attempts to re-gain her youth by returning to her small town in Minnesota to snare her high school boyfriend. The problem is that he (Patrick Wilson) is married with a newborn baby. He also isn’t the least bit interested in her, but she is oblivious to reality. She also is the classic bitch that we all knew back in high school who was popular back then, but never matured mentally or emotionally.
Now while Theron is glamorous and beautiful, Oswalt is short and dumpy, but his performance in this flick is outstanding. He was beaten to a pulp years ago and still has the physical and mental scars from that incident. Whereas Theron can’t see reality at all, Oswalt is incredibly perceptive, and the two of them strike up one of the more unusual friendships you’ll ever see on the big screen.
Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman teamed up on this movie much like they did on their previous hit, “Juno. Like “Juno,” this is a very clever movie but this is more of dark comedy than their first collaboration. My guess is that they also will be nominated for this movie.
I can’t say the overall flick is one of the year’s best, but the performances within the movie are top notch. Theron and Oswalt both get four stars from me and the movie itself rates a triple – three stars on my meter.
