RichC2

Theron has been my "hottest woman in Hollywood" pick for a while, it's just now starting to fade a little bit. Though she does look great in the trailer for Snow White as well.

Ash Ketchum

I never found Theron terribly attractive at all...until YOUNG ADULT. She's very hot in this movie. Well, let me amend that...I seem to remember thinking she was pretty damned hot in MIGHTY JOE YOUNG also. Come to think of it, I believe that was the last thing I saw her in before YOUNG ADULT. Never mind...

Matthew Chmiel

I missed the ranking of Reitman films? Aw, man.

1. Thank You For Smoking
2. Up in the Air
3. Young Adult
4. Juno

I caught this the other week with MoviePass with my wife. My wife loved it, however, she also loves Cody's other works (including Jennifer's Body). I didn't care too much for it. Ash mentioned that it felt as if they went to production using a rough draft and I can't agree with that theory more. There's a lot of interesting ideas the film has, but the film doesn't do anything of note with them. It also has issues balancing dark comedy with dramatic elements. At times, it feels like a drama with forced elements of comedy and that hurts the film from making Mavis any sort of a likable character. The film just chalks all of Mavis' problems to alcoholism and cuts to black. Fin!

Personally, I saw the film as a 90-minute vehicle to waste the talents of Theron, Wilson and Oswalt. At least it wasn't a 90-minute castration like Juno was.

Mike86

Saw it last night and I liked it quite a bit. I really like Reitman a lot though I guess and would put Up In The Air as one of my favorite movies in a while. I though Theron and Oswalt did really good in their roles in this. It was something different I guess in exploring a good looking woman who was clearly used to getting what she wanted in life and how she's having problems coping with her adult life now that everything isn't working exactly the way she planned.

dhmac

I finally saw this and think it was great! Diablo Cody really redeemed herself to me (I think Juno was entertaining but didn't at all deserve any of the Oscar nominations or awards it got, and Jennifer's Body was pretty terrible) and this is the best film she has written easily, IMO.

What I liked most about it is how I both identified a lot with Charlize Theron's Mavis character, while at the same time being shocked by her behavior. That she got so fixated on this old flame that she was once happy with as some sort of cure to her personal unhappiness, yet clearly not wanting the small town, married with children lifestyle at all just showed how messed up she was.

A friend interpreted it as being like the main character from a typical Katherine Heigl or Jennifer Anniston movie being taken out of her artificial "Romantic Comedy" world and instead being placed into the real world, so the character comes across like a completely obsessed stalker in her behavior.

And comparing this to Bridesmaids, which did share some similar themes, I thought this was much, much better. The best thing about Bridesmaids was Melissa McCarthy's performance (who deservingly got an Oscar nod), but aside from her, I thought the rest of it was pretty disappointing given all the buzz about it. I laughed at this one a lot more and thought it was more original too, so I'll take rewatching Young Adult any day over rewatching Bridesmaids.

islandclaws

Watched this tonight, only because a friend - who also dislikes Cody's writing style - said he saw most of it and recommended it.

Yep, he was right. As dhmac said above, this was a big step toward redemption for Cody. Her writing here was much more organic, eschewing all that wannabe hipster/cutesy crap that made Juno so intolerable. These characters had clearly defined personalities, histories, and major deficiencies.

Theron was fantastic. She really sold everything about Mavis, though some of her antics seemed over the top even for a raging alcoholic. So much uncomfortable dark humor at times I thought Todd Solondz was behind it. Oswald almost steals the show as someone whose pain runs parallel to Mavis' in many ways. He sees right through her and it both comforts and pisses her off.

I enjoyed the heavily '90s soundtrack, too. Suicidal!

Never expected to enjoy this one so much, but dark comedies are my fave. I'd even buy it on blu.

OldBoy

excellent, excellent movie.

Why So Blu?

Loved YA. I hate Cody's writing in everything else. Juno was garbage.

Solid Snake

I actually like Juno. Enough to own it. It's funny, quirky, and good. It's not supposed to be real. It has funny and odd characters for which it works with. Does it well. Never understood the hate. Overrated awarded film? Yes. Garbage? no.

OldBoy

i liked Juno decent enough as well.

could not stand Jennifer's Body though...

Why So Blu?

It's not supposed to be real? I think the portrayal of Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner's (the best part of the film) was supposed to be real. Teenage pregnancy was the whole point - infused with extremely try-hard and pop culture references every other line. It was distracting as fuck. It was Diablo Cody talking through Ellen Page that made Page's character not congruent in the film, because it was clearly an adult talking and not Ellen Page's teenage character talking.

islandclaws

I think Cody can write fucked up quasi-adults very well, but she has no idea how to write honest teenagers. A recent example of her still being unable to do this was the script polish for Evil Dead. Her work shines through in the worst ways possible. But with YA, it's like someone else entirely wrote it. In fact, the teen dialogue Mavis uses for her book, which is constantly overheard, sounds horrendous, which only further proves this point.

Why So Blu?

Agreed. She fucked up Evil Dead.