A (Spoiler-Filled) Review of Young Adult

Just so everyone knows, this review will contain spoilers, where I talk extensively about the new Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody movie, Young Adult. I’m even going to cover the ending.  What this means is don’t read through this entry unless you really really want to know what happens in this movie or if you have no plans on seeing the movie. Everyone ready, then? Here we go…

The problem with writing about Young Adult is that there are so many ways to approach the movie. I could start off with the old Steve Martin quote, “Comedy isn’t always pretty.” I could also talk about how Charlize Theron’s character is like watching Charlie Sheen on “Two and a Half Men” once the cameras are removed.

Instead, I’ll start by saying I have a compulsion to watch movies where the plot is the main character returns to his or her hometown. Not enough of a compulsion where I have to go out and rent the movie, but enough of one that I want to know what the plot is. For the most part, the movies are utter dreck, usually romantic comedies where the main character has all sorts of embarrassing pratfalls and incidents, and ends up solving literally everything with some impassioned romantic speech about how their co-star is their sun and their moon, and that the main character is a much better person now. Sweet Home Alabama, check. Hope Floats, check. Just Friends, check.

Then we have Young Adult. The plot is pretty simple: Mavis Gary (played by Charlize Theron), has escaped her small town of Mercury, Minnesota to escape to Minneapolis, Minnesota. She’s a ghostwriter for a young adult series of books that is eerily similar to the endless Sweet Valley High series. When she’s not writing, she’s a hard-drinking party girl with no sense of neatness and a line of one-night stands. As she’s busy ghost writing the latest book, she gets an email from her old high school sweetheart who has sent out a mass email about the release of his first baby. Mavis takes this as a sign that she was always meant to be with her high school sweetheart, and immediately goes on a quest to win him back. The whole wife and kid thing? To her, it’s just prior relationship baggage. Nothing to be too concerned about.

When she gets to her hometown, she meets Matt Friedhoff (played by Patton Oswalt), a high school geek who got severely beat up once upon a time because some jocks thought he was gay. As Mavis tries to steal her high school sweetheart away, she and Matt form an odd bond with one another.

That’s the plot, and it seems on the surface to be one of the standard funny-and-sweet ideas, where Mavis of course realizes that Matt is the one for her all along, and they live happily ever after. Except that’s not where the movie goes at all. Mavis and Matt are two incredibly broken people, and at the end of the movie only Mavis shows signs of growth. I’ve noticed a few other reviewers complain about wanting to see more of Matt, and I agree, but he’s not the main character in this movie—Mavis is.

One of the best parts of Young Adult is that it takes some tired tropes and examines them. On the surface, Mavis is essentially Charlie Sheen in Two and a Half Men.  (I know that Charlie Sheen plays a different character named “Charlie,” but come on—we all know he’s playing himself.) But Mavis sits head and shoulders above Charlie Sheen and those similar freewheeling party characters just by asking why the characters do what they do? In Mavis’ case, it’s because she is fundamentally unhappy. There’s a fantastic scene where she talks with her parents, and as her parents are fussing over her, she says with no lead-in, “I think I’m an alcoholic.” It comes at you sideways, but it’s also completely plausible. As the movie goes on, more and more cracks in Mavis’ personality become apparent, until the façade she’s created for everyone, including herself, falls apart. Here’s the thing, though—at the end, Mavis’ personality has been completely deconstructed, and she knows it as much as anyone. “I’ve got problems,” she tells Matt’s sister, and then Matt’s sister gives Mavis as much praise as anyone has heaped on her throughout the movie. There are no easy answers in this movie, and no one is one hundred percent good or bad. As Matt’s sister points out, Mavis has reached out. She has tried to be the best she can be, and even though Mavis has become this alcoholic, arguably depressed, woman, because she’s fallen so far short of her goals, that’s a lot more than many people who still live in Mercury can say.

The other side of the coin is Matt. He’s broken both physically—he has to walk with a crutch—and mentally. He doesn’t really engage the rest of the world, he just does the accounting for a sports bar and spends the rest of his time painting action figures and brewing extremely alcoholic liquor with names like “Mos Eisley Vintage.” He’s basically been shown how far down the totem pole he truly ranked in high school, and it shows in his mid-thirties. He’s never been able to put the past behind him, as opposed to another handicapped character who shows up briefly, Mavis’ cousin Mike who somehow became a paraplegic. Matt hates him because his injury stole the attention away from Matt, Mavis hates him because his injury took place on the weekend of her 16^th birthday party. The thing is, Mike is better adjusted than either of them. The symbolism is pretty obvious, but what’s interesting is how many ways you can analyze the three characters. There’s some implication that Mike was popular as well, and his injury was due to an accident. Mike’s injury was getting beaten up with a crowbar. There is some difference there, and it would be fun to discuss it with other people.

The layers of depth are really what propel Young Adult into the realm of greatness. Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman have managed to put together characters that are so three-dimensional and so much goes on in the movie that it will have people talking about it for months, or at least it should. Does Mavis have clinical depression? Will Matt be able to come to terms with his injury and move on? What is the real view of Mavis—sarcastic depressed failure, or a woman who has done some remarkable things?

I should point out that Charlize Theron makes the movie. She really brings Mavis to life, and she puts forth an Oscar-quality performance. A lot of her performance is non-vocal, and she portrays it expertly. She does bored extremely well when she’s by herself, but she’s showing more than just boredom. She’s showing boredom plus frustration plus resignation. She’s a good enough actress that when she’s standing in her underwear near the end of the film, it’s not sexy. It’s her symbolically letting her façade drop, and it’s a little heartrending, which I never quite thought I’d say about seeing a model in lingerie.

In case I haven’t put too fine a point on this review, Young Adult is very, very good. I seriously think the film should get some Oscar awards, and unlike a lot of Oscar-worthy movies, this isn’t pretentious or artistic at the expense of the story—it’s simply a well-told, deep story, and almost everyone will walk away with something different. For me, what I got out of it was this—happiness is a choice. One thing and one person isn’t going to make you happy. It’s something you have to do for yourself. I think I’ve known that already, but it’s good to relearn.

The Stigmata of the Muppets

The big problem with the new Muppets movie is that long-time Muppets fans are still feeling the loss of Jim Henson. He may have died almost 20 years ago, but I think it’s safe to say the Muppets haven’t been the same without him. Not that they haven’t tried; they’ve gotten different puppeteers to play the roles left vacant by Jim Henson, and Steve Whitmire is very good as Kermit the Frog, but the problem remains—the Muppets had a lot of Jim Henson in them, and without Jim Henson, the Muppets don’t feel quite right anymore.

At least that’s the way it feels to me. One of my first TV experiences was watching the Muppets, along with Sesame Street, and while I never quite warmed up to the guests (who cares who Bob Hope is when you’re four, you want the Muppets!), or appreciated the musical numbers, I could appreciate the chaos and the general silliness that the show brought to the airwaves. When I had the chance to watch the Muppet Show again on DVD, I finally understood all the adult humor that had gone completely over my head as a child, not to mention the incredible inventiveness. The “Hugga Mugga” sketch is still one of my favorites, and the rapidity with which the dumb jokes were fired off made them funny.

After Jim Henson died, Jim Henson studios did make a good attempt to keep going. In all fairness, I loved A Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island, but then came Muppets in Space, which utterly failed to thrill me. I wasn’t a fan of the new Muppets they introduced, and the guest cameos seemed to degenerate from A and B list celebs to D-listers at best. Then Disney bought the Muppets, and my expectations went completely down the tubes. I don’t know how anyone else feels, but when I think of “quality all-ages entertainment,” I usually think of anyone but Disney. Yes, they can market to kids like nobody’s business. Yes, they’ve put out a lot of animated movies that are supposed to be all-ages, but with pretty much all of their movies until “Princess and the Frog,” I’ve never actually wanted to watch one, and when I have I’ve never felt at all engaged by their stories, which are basically fairy tales and folk tales remade with a healthy dollop of junior high wish fulfillment. Someday your prince will rescue you, provided you’re beautiful! If you’re down on your luck, you might discover you’re the chosen one who will discover a genie and the princess won’t really care that you lied to make her like you! The message Disney sent out pretty much appealed to either the popular kids in high school or the kids who wanted to be the popular kids in high school. If you didn’t fall into either of those groups, Disney wanted nothing to do with you. Plus, Disney is about as forgiving with their copyrights as Kim Jong Il is with North Korean dissenters. Who can forget the touching story of the time Disney made a nursery school paint over the Disney characters it had in their coatroom?

So yeah, when I heard they were making a new Muppet movie, I thought I knew where this was going. I could see Bob Iger sitting in the Disney boardroom and saying, “Yeah, Jim Henson had one or two good ideas, but now we’re really going to make the Muppets good! Now who has a movie script that we can make into toys and a Disneyland ride?” The fact that Frank Oz wasn’t in the movie, and had in fact condemned it, struck me as an extra little slap in the face to the remaining puppeteers and Muppets fans. Still, I heard good reviews, and I really did want to like it. So I bought a ticket the Sunday after Thanksgiving and braced myself.

You know what? It was a really good movie. Jason Segal should be congratulated for managing to make a movie that manages to hit all the notes it needed to, and it embraces some of the best parts of the Muppets. All the Muppets are themselves, and I want to point out that Sam the Eagle and Bo the janitor may be the two best character moments in the show, bar none. Not that the rest of the Muppets suffer, though. They’ve all been updated to keep up with the times, and I personally loved seeing where the characters had ended up.

Then you have a staple of the Muppet movies—the guest stars. There were a lot of cameos, and I think most of them were well-deserved. I’d like to give special kudos to Kristen Schaal, who played the most violent anger management therapist ever, Selena Gomez, who did a pretty good job spoofing herself, and Neil Patrick Harris, who definitely should have been the guest host.

Finally, I’ve got to say, this movie had heart. I’ve seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which is perhaps my favorite comedy about romance (NOT a romantic comedy) ever. If you haven’t seen it, it’s about breaking up and moving on, and while it does have the occasional misfire it deserves a lot of praise for showing not only how the process of breaking up and moving on really is, it makes the process funny and, just as important, it doesn’t pick sides of the breakup. Yes, the movie focuses on one side over another, but that one side is not necessarily always correct. I bring this up because in the new Muppets movie, Jason Segal manages to craft another relationship problem between the brothers Gary and Walter, and Gary’s girlfriend Mary, where Walter and Gary spend almost all their time together, and Mary wants to have some time alone with Gary. Jason Segal manages once again to give all three characters a valid point, and the way the situation is resolved isn’t forced or solved by a dues ex machina. The characters actually get to make choices consistent with their characterization to that point, and the movie is so much stronger for it that it almost overshadowed the main plot for me.

Still, you can feel the hole where Jim Henson’s presence was. I found myself asking, “Would the Muppets do that?” or “Is this appropriate for a Muppets film?” At least one joke in the film I could see being included by Bob Iger just to give Frank Oz an emotional backhand. Also, the film had a lot of focus on “the way the Muppets do things,” calling back to previous TV shows and movies. There’s only so many callbacks you can do before having to include new material, but with the Muppets the new material almost has to remind people of the old material without being the old material itself. It’s similar to when a band gets a new guitar player, or even more disruptively a new lead singer—fans of the way the band used to be pine for the original lineup, but they don’t want the band to simply rehash all its old songs. In this instance, I think every Muppet fan out there is going to have to ask themselves what new material they’re willing to accept. I think we’ll see a lot of different answers.

Getting Suckerpunched by Tron Legacy

[There will be significant spoilers in here for Tron Legacy, Suckerpunch and Phantom Menace. You have been warned.]

To give you a sense of how bad I thought Suckerpunch and Tron Legacy were, I can now safely say that The Phantom Menace is actually a pretty good movie in comparison. I am completely serious here. I know this is blasphemy to many sci-fi/fantasy fans, but here’s the thing—Phantom Menace has a lot of solid storytelling elements that the moviegoing public takes for granted.

Characters are one of these overlooked elements. Jar Jar Binks is one of the most annoying characters to ever set foot on the silver screen, but he’s consistently annoying. You know more or less what you’re getting. He also has a motivation—to stay near the Jedi who gave him a lifedebt. I don’t like the fact that he’s completely incompetent and succeeds because of some accident or another, but Jar Jar Binks is a more substantial character than any of the girls in Suckerpunch. He’s even more substantial than Babydoll, the main character in Suckerpunch. At the beginning she’s a blank slate. She has no personality, other than a very nasty event about to happen, and it’s only when her fantasy becomes the movie that she, or pretty much any other character, develops a personality. The more you think about it, the harder it becomes to reconcile. Even in the Wizard of Oz, if it’s only supposed to be a dream, Dorothy has a clearly-developed character before being swept away by the tornado.

In fact, since there isn’t any characterization in the real world, the motivation and reasoning behind almost any part of the plot is “because.” How do Babydoll’s friends join her in the action sequences? Because. Why is the wise man there? Because. Why do they have to kill all these monsters? Because. Why does one of the characters have to sacrifice herself? Because.

In fact, it’s the whole sacrifice of Babydoll that really makes the entire movie meaningless. She doesn’t escape, her fantasy ends with her getting lobotomized, and Sweet Pea escapes. Granted, the only thing we know of Sweet Pea’s character is what we’ve seen in Babydoll’s fantasy, and how much of that is supposed to transfer over to reality the audience has no idea. Again, why are we supposed to care about Sweet Pea? Because. How does the Wise Man who has supposedly been in Babydoll’s fantasy become a real person with no connection to the asylum where the girls are housed? Because.

In the Phantom Menace, on the other hand, the characters are in the same reality all the time. What happens to Qui-Gon Jinn affects everyone and you know why you should care. It’s a luxury I was unaware I needed until Suckerpunch came along. Not only that, there are definite answers to some of the questions. Why does Padme act so odd toward the Jedi? Because she’s the queen in disguise! Why does Darth Maul have that battle with Qui-Gon on Tattooine? Because he’s tracked a signal to Naboo, sent search droids out, and they located her ship! It’s almost a spiritual experience to watch the Phantom Menace and see just how well the plot fits together when you compare it to Suckerpunch.

By comparison, Tron Legacy has clear characters. Somewhat eye-rolling, because the main character is an extreme sports nut who is also an expert at high-security break-ins and is also a master hacker, but clear. Then he gets swept into the world of Tron, and the whole movie pretty much goes down the toilet after that, in a storm of “because.” How does Rinzler, aka Tron, manage to overcome his programming in his final moments of life? Because. Why can’t Flynn destroy Clu without destroying himself? Because. In fact, why can’t Flynn fight Clu? Because. Why is Quorra’s race so important? Because. Why is Quorra supposed to change everything when she gets out of The Grid? Because.

I’d also like to mention that in both Suckerpunch and Tron Legacy characters utter lines completely at random, without really any context to what is going on around them. When Kevin Flynn rants about how they should just stay at his little villa off The Grid, neither Quorra or Sam actually says why. When Sam decides to go back into The Grid, he says it’s because this is something he has to do with absolutely nothing in the film leading to this moment. When the Wise Man in Suckerpunch gives the girls advice before each mission, his final words of wisdom have nothing to do with the situation they’re in. It would be like if a coach in a football locker room said, “Okay guys, before you go out for the second half, remember—Velcro fastens quicker, but tying your shoelaces gives you more satisfaction.” Compare this to Yoda’s talk to Anakin about how fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering.

I’ll grant you that Jake Lloyd’s performance as Anakin can be wooden, but at least Anakin and all his dialogue fit into the movie. Could Obi-Wan have been used more in the Tatooine sequences? Yes, but at least there was a reason for him to be where he was. Compare this to Sam trying to find the black market program Zuse, who does almost nothing for the movie. He’s this big secretive character, and his secret identity? A slick club owner who you’d expect to be a black market dealer anyway. After that, his only role is to call down the forces of Clu on Sam, Quorra and Flynn, and then stand around while Clu puts a bomb in his hand, which has to rank as one of the most pathetic character deaths of all time. No running, no action whatsoever. He just holds the bomb in his hand and complains as he waits for it to go off. It’s one of the most unnecessary scenes in the movie, and I say that knowing that the best fight scene in Tron Legacy was in the club, thanks to Daft Punk’s “Derezzed.”

I really want to know how anyone could like either of these movies, and why Phantom Menace is still held in such low esteem after these movies came out. Let me know if you can help me on this. I’ll be waiting in line for the Phantom Menace 3-D.