On the Square Today

Thomas Hibbs reviews the new film Young Adult :

The new film  Young Adult , the latest from the writer/director team of Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody of  Juno  fame, features Charlize Theron as Mavis Gary, a writer of young adult fiction living in the Twin Cities who returns to the small town of Mercury, MN to relive her glory days as a high school prom queen and to reclaim her former beau, Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson). Although it is not without its funny moments,  Young Adult  is hardly a pleasant film. Yet it is a compelling and instructive one; in a Hollywood culture that celebrates perpetual adolescence,  Young Adult  is a rarity, an unsparing depiction of what it is like to remain trapped in adolescent fantasy.

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