Review: Young Adult

Nonna's Rating: $

Rotten Tomatoes: 81%

Audience: 58%

I'm beginning to suspect that when movies are so uniformly mediocre (as they were for most of last year), film critics conspire to give better-than-deserved reviews to some films in order to make sure people keep going to movies and they still have jobs reviewing them. I suspect Young Adult is one such film. Charlize Theron does a decent job portraying the main character, Mavis Gary, a hometown high school honey who has moved away to the big city -- Minneapolis -- and is the envy of all those who stayed behind. But Mavis has a problem: she's an alcoholic who has never outgrown the mean girl inside of her. She decides to go back home in order to seduce her high school boyfriend, now happily married with a new baby. The film attempts to be a black comedy, but it doesn't measure up. When all is said and done, it's just sad and shallow, and Mavis remains the same depressed, drunk woman she was in the beginning.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip it