A Disappointing Continuation

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I found Young Adult to be pretty entertaining. Charlize Theron (Monster, Mad Max: Fury Road) proves she's still got it in this story of a YA writer who is still stuck in high school (mentally). The plot revolves around Charlize Theron's character returning to her Midwestern hometown to enact her harebrained scheme to steal back her married high school boyfriend. Patton Oswalt (King of Queens, The Fan) costars as the nerdy best friend. Writer Diablo Cody (Juno, Ricki and the Flash) is emerging as one of the best writers of character development on the American market. Her films typically involve creative collaborator Jason Reitman and feature similar themes of Midwestern homecomings, and fractured, slice-of-life, female characters engaged in situational plots.

For once Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody, director and writer, respectively, whose previous offerings were the great Juno and Up in the Air, miss the mark. The movie starts well, and has a similar bitter-sweet comedy-drama feel as Juno and Up in the Air. However, from a point it loses direction and ultimately just fizzles out.Charlize Theron gives a solid performance in the lead role. Her character's personality is a bit flaky and irrational, and sometimes hard to believe could possibly exist, and she does a great job in making the character believable. Good support from Patton Oswalt and Patrick Wilson.

If your high school sweetheart was stolen by the prom queen years ago, this is a really feel-good movie to you.Young Adult is bold enough NOT to have a happy ending or silver lining, Charlize Theron is brave to take an unlikable, narcissistic and almost pathetic lead role. Diablo Cody's screenplays reminds me Tennessee Williams: the lead characters are shattered, ruined, and finally must face the broken mirror, their bad choices made and their own flaws.Back to the film itself, I like some of the brilliant touch-ups: Buddy is not Mr. Nice either, he does not care about what happened to Matt. Matt's sister may have flattered Mavis only for getting a chance to leave Mercury. Does Mavis still love Buddy? No way, it is not about the old flame, it is about desperately trying to get back her glorious teenage years and what she could have had. But eventually you would feel sorry for Mavis' loss and failure. C'est la vie. If Juno, the teenage pregnant girl written by Diablo Cody, turned 37 years old, she could be Mavis and this film just needs to add a scene: she watched her 20 years old son/daughter in a distance, turned around and left in the rain.

A writer of a young adult book series comes back to her old town to find her old boyfriend. I really didn't get this film. First I though it was about a woman with depression. Then that Mavis was just stuck to her past as a popular girl. In the end, the movie left me with mixed feelings. Did Mavis grow up? Was she really depressed? And if so, did she get help? The trigger for her break down is her ex boyfriend's newborn baby. Mavis is walking around with the photo of the baby before she rushes back convinced that she and him are meant to be together. There are some sparks of depth, like when Mavis admits that she is an alcoholic or when she starts pulling off her own hair, but it never gets deep enough. Her book heroin is Mavis herself, that's obvious enough, but who was really Mavis? And what was the point of this film? So 2 out of 10 only because of the performances.