Charlize Theron Downplays Her Sexy Looks in ‘Young Adult’ Movie Review

Young Adult never really latched on with domestic audiences, and it’s understandable why. The film earned just $16m in the U.S. despite a recognizable star (Charlize Theron) and an emerging named director and writer. The film is difficult to classify. It was sold as a comedy, but it’s definitely dark – if and when you are laughing. Meanwhile, it carries the pacing of a drama. Its lead is an adult who thinks she’s still young, in part due to her profession and in part because she really appears to be mentally challenged and depressed. This is a film with a strange tone, very independent in nature though seemingly aspiring to bigger audience appeal. What results is a middling film that struggles to find its footing with an audience. It tries to be too many things at once and ends up hitting singles and doubles instead of home runs most of the time. What laughs there are do hurt deliciously though.

Theron does “her thing” – which is to play against her considerable looks. Her Mavis Gary is a ghostwriter for a once popular teen series of books. So, while she has the money from a seemingly successful career, she doesn’t really have the recognition. A writer’s life is lonely. She is of a small town who moved on to write in big, bad Minneapolis. However, her loneliness leads her to return home to said small town to try to win back her high school flame, Buddy (Patrick Wilson). Unfortunately, as Mavis is well aware, Buddy has a newborn and a wife to contend with. Alas, she intends to breakup his marriage and be with Buddy.

‘Up In The Air’ Director Jason Reitman and ‘Juno’ writer Diablo Cody Team Up for ‘Young Adult‘

While Mavis arrives in said small hometown, she meets Matt (Patton Oswalt) at a bar. Matt was a former classmate who Mavis barely remembers. Oh yeah, Matt is a “cripple”, due to an unfortunate beating he took in high school. Matt is every bit as depressed as Mavis is, without the delusions of grandeur. You can already tell where their relationship is heading and that is one of the saccharine issues with Young Adult. It’s obvious Mavis, who thinks like a “Y.A.” as she calls it, does so because she is a writer attempting to get into the mind of teens for her book series. Her delusion takes on a real form though, due to a failed marriage of her own along with massive amounts of Maker’s Mark – a stiff whisky for those not in the know.

A writer in her element. Charlize's Mavis eavesdrops on a convo in 'Young Adult.'

Ultimately, Mavis chases Buddy, while Matt looms. The conclusion to the drama is coming from a mile away, but that’s not always the point. The beats the film hits are typical and expected. However, the movie still has so many moments of awkward discomfort that there is redemption to be had. The juxtaposition of small town and big town is at play. The idea of giving up who you were and moving on from your past. There are some real themes explored in Young Adult and the film is mostly successful at this exploration.

Still, its not an entirely fun ride getting there – director Jason Reitman lacks visual flair, simply portraying small town America as a place few would seemingly want to be, yet most are. The punch to Diablo Cody’s writing is biting but errs on sadness rather than humorous. You wanted to laugh more than you were allowed to. That ultimately settles the film into middle of the road fare, kind of like it’s small town and local denizens. They’re either happily dimwitted or occupied with repressed depression and neither is a particularly pleasurable place to be.

Director Miguel Arteta’s Cedar Rapids Movie Review – Starring Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Isiah Whitlock Jr. and Anne Heche

The title for the film Cedar Rapids (movie trailer) makes it sound like a potentially wild, rafting movie, until you look at a map and realize it is instead based on the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Here, Cedar Rapids serves as a big, intimidating locale for Tim Lippe, a middle-aged, small town insurance salesman, who has never even been on a plane before. A yearly insurance convention, the AMSI, is the reason for the gathering and Tim’s boss desperately wants him to win the prestigious 2-diamond award for their tiny Brown Valley insurance company.

Tim is portrayed by Ed Helms, who prior to this I have seen in one film role ever, via 2009’s The Hangover. He plays the exact type of character one would expect, a semi-single, lonely, straight arrow with nothing but good intentions in his heart. Tim has been thrust into the role of representing the agency after the sudden death of a colleague. Once Tim arrives at the convention, conventional hi-jinks ensue.

While Tim is treating the AMSI as a serious business trip, convention veterans from other insurance companies come to whoop-it-up and let loose, to escape their lives for a few days. At the convention we meet Dean “Deanzie” Ziegler, Ronald Wilkes and Joan Fox. The plot essentially revolves around the veteran outlandish trio taking conservative Tim under their wing to show him the ropes of the convention.

Ann Heche's Joan sees something in Ed Helms's Tim in the comedy Cedar Rapids.

The Cedar Rapids Cast Has Palpable Chemistry in this Broad Comedy

Tim eventually loosens up with the help of John C. Reilly’s Deanzie, who serves as the primary source of comedy, with his loud, brash, endearing and interfering ways. Isiah Whitlock Jr., best known for his role in the hit cop-crime drama “The Wire,” plays the sexually ambiguous Ronald, with a wink-wink to the audience and serves as a good yin to Deanzie’s yang. Anne Heche’s Joan brings the foursome together while naturally engaging in some sexual fun with Tim. All the characters bring their own baggage to the convention, with the possibility of seeing it disappear. Mix in a hooker with a heart, some untold truths about the 2-diamond award and the story can find its legs.

If you couldn’t tell, Cedar Rapids is primarily a fish out of water, coming-of-age story with morality undertones, which works well enough. It’s a tale we’ve seen a thousand times before, but it still has its endearing moments. Director Miguel Arteta (Star Maps, Youth In Revolt) lets the actors serve the story without interfering with any technical camera tricks. What makes the film work is the general realism of the situations the characters find themselves in, even if their way out of those situations might not be common.

Rapids will surprise no one but it has a few laughs and the cast generates enough chemistry to propel the film forward towards its completely expected climax. Despite the lack of thrills, you can’t help but root for Tim, and it’s to Helm’s credit and a pretty smart script by first-time big screen scribe Phil Johnston, that it all holds together. Supporting players like Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Root and Rob Corddry are welcome additions. Tim’s journey wouldn’t be complete without them.

The Oscar voters got it wrong.  Can I have a recount?  It’s no wonder the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voting members steered clear of Revolutionary Road.  It’s clearly far too bleak, depressing, and challenging for them to acknowledge.  This film is easily the most dark and demanding I have seen this year.  It is not an easy-going movie experience but those both brave and patient enough to accept the challenge will be rewarded with a film of great complexity and more than only one performance that is worthy of Oscar discussion, Academy be damned.  In this economy, it’s understandable people don’t want to see this film.  Things are bad enough.  We don’t want our entertainment dollar to be spent on something that is going to bring us down emotionally.  But if you are up to the task, with the right frame of mind, it can be a rich experience.  You just have to go in with the Surgeon General’s Warning (and there is a lot of smoking in the film, to boot!), emotional clashes lie ahead.

Based on the Richard Yates novel, Road is primarily set in the 50′s, a story about a couple looking to fulfill their ambitions within the structure of their relationship and a developing American society.  Views are questioned, aspirations are shattered, dreams are dashed.  After two kids, years of marriage, and a fruitless job for Frank Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio), his domesticated wife April (Kate Winslet), desperately propositions him with the opportunity of fulfilling their youthful vision of living in Paris.  The philandering Frank reluctantly agrees to uproot his family and find his true calling.  In essence though, it is April, who may be the schemer here.  Winslet plays a woman almost as troubled as Kathy Bates’ (another co-star here) Annie Wilkes in Misery.

Leo and Kate share a dance when times were good.

As moods swing for the better in the short term, eventually like The Roots sang, “things fall apart.”  A meddlesome neighbor with a psychopathic son (Bates as Helen Givings), affairs o’ plenty, an unexpected job opportunity, and another major bomb, keep matters tense.  Excruciatingly so, at times.  Situations fraught with heated words, exchanges of empty stares, more heartache ensues here than on Kanye West’s latest album, as tension builds to a crescendo.  I’ll leave you to figure out the rest.

DiCaprio proves unequivocally that he is amongst Hollywood’s finest actors working today and it’s a shame that he hasn’t been recognized for this film.  Winslet does her best to keep up with him, but as talented as she is, the task is nearly impossible.  Leo lights the screen ablaze pouring his heart and soul into this grand performance.  You hurt for him.  He becomes Frank Wheeler in a role that should have catapulted him into the discussion with Mickey Rourke as the year’s greatest achievement in acting.  It’s one for the ages that will get better through the years.

Leo couldn't pull off the saggy, hip-hop look Winslet wanted.

In addition to the leads, Michael Shannon ignites his scenes with crucial and urgent acting that was rightfully recognized with a Best Supporting Actor nomination for this year’s Oscars.  His mentally deranged John Givings ends up being the most insightful antagonist in the film.  Opponents sometimes complain that playing mentally inept is an easy way out for actors, but in this case I simply don’t agree.  Shannon displays a deep uneasiness in the mood swings of his vocally vicious tyrant.

While Director Sam Mendes imbues the film with his usual deft eye, the film is not flawless.  It’s like his Oscar-winning film American Beauty, if raging from being denied another dose of steroids.  There are some unneeded hiccups (a telegraphed affair gone awry, semi-empty scenes with Frank’s co-workers) along the way. But as the film winds down with Howard Givings turning down his hearing aid on his chatter-box wife, we are so spent that we are glad he does.  Sometimes happiness remains an elusive destination, one certainly not easily found on Revolutionary Road.