Revisiting YOUNG ADULT: "You're Good Here"
A grad season tribute to those who never really leave high school
I’ve long held a belief that an image of yourself in your hometown is always frozen at 18 when you graduate high school. For those around you, the lingering snapshot proves a kind of measuring stick against which others will evaluate your entire adult life. And for each person, it becomes like a uniform you slip back into at home. Some can make it fit like a second skin, while others find it an ill-fitting garment. Especially if you don’t like how it suits you, this old self can prove rather stifling in demanding conformity to its past patterns as you try to squeeze your way into it.
Such is the ballad of Charlize Theron’s Mavis Gary in the 2011 film Young Adult, which largely fizzled with audiences and awards voters upon release but has slowly amassed an army of online admirers. I was a fan at the time and could recognize its wisdom with just six months of hindsight from my own time in high school, but that appreciation has only grown and deepened with further distance. When I re-ranked my favorite films of 2011 a decade later, Young Adult jumped up four slots to #3.
I think about the film all the time, partly because of the unique alchemy of pathos and patheticness director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody concoct to conjure Mavis’ likeness. Young Adult has proven polarizing because many are afraid to see themselves reflected in her villainy and vulnerability. The film plays like a sour take on the sweet My Best Friend’s Wedding as a female romantic lead makes one last run at winning over the heart of an old flame. The film’s opening credits, a series of shots inside a cassette tape Mavis jams out to, spell out that this is a deconstruction of the character meant not just to portray what she does. It’s a look at the mechanics of why she is stuck in the past — and who might be responsible for keeping her there.
For my money, there’s never a bad time to try and see Mavis’ behavior not through a window but through a mirror. But it’s especially top of mind for me with the upcoming graduation season. The pomp and circumstance of commencement ceremonies are supposed to mark a transition from one stage of life to the next. Young Adult takes an unblinkered look at the people who get older but don’t necessarily grow up. For some people, high school graduation is not a stepping stone but a summit.
Young Adult is available to rent on various digital platforms. Paid subscribers can continue for additional analysis of the film.
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