The Thousands

Some films really get you in the guts, and for me Young Adult was one. At times bitingly funny and achingly sad, Jason Reitman’s dramedy recalls Bad Teacher in its fearless refusal to make its heroine likeable, and Diablo Cody’s shrewd script explores how we clutch for reassurance when we panic that our salad days are behind us.

Popping Teenage Fanclub in her cassette player and armouring herself with primping and drinking, former high-school queen bee and now young adult author Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) returns to her loathed Minnesota hometown to steal back her high-school boyfriend Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson), who’s now happily married with a baby. She finds an unexpected kindred spirit in a former classmate, nerdy Matt Freehauf (a terrific Patton Oswalt), who’s wallowing in his own early-’90s heyday for the more understandable reason that a vicious (and mistaken) gay-bashing by local jocks left him terribly crippled. They find a kind of comfortable honesty together.

Despite Mavis’s cruel narcissism, there’s something poignant about watching her realise the withering of her youthful power. But what makes this film both disheartening and admirable is that after everything, Mavis still can’t find a new leaf to turn over.