“She wears denim wherever she goes/Says she’s gonna get some records by The Status Quo/Oh, yeah”… You’ve got to love a film which begins with Teenage Fanclub’s ‘The Concept’ blasting out on an old car tape deck.
So begins Diablo Cody’s masterful Young Adult, starring Charlize Thereon as the particularly vituperative Mavis Gray, a (barely) functioning alcoholic who decides to briefly move back to her formative town, Mercury.
She’s there, essentially, to win back her old flame because of boredom, writer’s block and sheer spite (her ex is married with a new baby). The film tanked in the US – audiences weren’t having it, according to Dr Mark Kermode. But it seemingly fared a bit better in the UK.
As is generally the case, the small town is largely unchanged, and Gray, who writes Young Adult fiction, seems to believe her very presence will be enough to win over Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson) despite his being besotted with his lovely wife Beth (Elizabeth Reaser) a drummer in an all-mom indie band, Nipple Confusion. Not that that’s going to stop her trying- she’s irresistible, right?.. Her only hope to become a better person arises from a new-found friendship with sweet, sensitive Matt (Patton Oswalt, wonderful) a classmate she ignored back in the day. Can he show her the error of trying to break up a perfectly happy marriage? This is Diablo Cody, directed by Jason Reitman- what do you think?
Here, nostalgia is weaponised. There’s nothing reassuring about treading old paths. Cody seems to have created an anti-rom-com, here, full of painfully accurate dialogue, but Gray isn’t monstrous, just sort of pitiful. It’s a bold play to suck all the joy of teenage mixtapes and old haunts, but Cody’s sharp nib scratches out the old adage that just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.
It’s the antithesis of charming small town films like Beautiful Girls, The Big Chill and American Graffiti, which wallow in the warm glow of youthful memories, and the promise of a better life ahead. The script’s cynicism suggests that small towns are often where dreams go to die, and you must change your circumstances to move ahead. Just, Mavis Gray never got that memo.
Thereon is perfect in the role, as snide as she’s beautiful, but really broken underneath. A bit like this often hilarious, bitter little film. I love it and I still like Teenage Fanclub’s first two albums.
Hit The North 