As with any Diablo Cody movie, you know you are going to get a wonderfully dark, comedic story with snarky, flawed characters, especially teaming up with helmer Jason Reitman. And as with Ellen Page as “Juno”, you couldn’t see anybody else in the role of Mavis than Charlize Theron with her Golden Globe nominated performance. Fearless. It’s safe to say Theron carried this movie.

After a recent divorce and subsequent writers block as ghost writer for a once popular teen romance series of books, Mavis (Theron) receives a baby announcement from her high school boyfriend, Buddy. She decides the time is ripe for her to return to the small town they grew up in and save Buddy from the prison he  is obviously crying out for help from. Of course, the one really crying out for help is the pretty but lost ex-prom queen on the verge of a breakdown. 

Hiding out in a motel with her cute but utterly abandoned dog, Mavis’ emotionally stunted exploits soon become fodder for the last book of the series, which nudging phone calls from her editor let us know she is soon to miss her deadline.  Home is a series of drunken nights and days spent plotting for the breakup of a marriage. Yes, Theron’s Mavis should be unlikeable, but somehow we find her raw,  honest and sympathetic.  In part due to the fact that this Chanel model /spokesperson allows herself (as she did in Monsters) to be seen as a mess.  And in part due to the juxtaposition between the high school book plot and that of her current life; we realize Mavis walks like an adult, knocks back bourbon like an adult, but by no means acts or thinks like one.  Your heart goes out to Mavis who finally gets up the guts to say, “I think I’m an alcoholic,” and nobody listens.  Not event the parents, who like all the pretty pictures of their daughter up on their wall more that the real one sitting across from them, when they finally find out she’s in town.   

Patrick Wilson as Buddy  is suitably nice but bland in the role giving hint that the Glory Days Mavis recalls are really through rose colored nostalgia glasses.  You’re never quite sure why out of all the men a looker such as Mavis would attract in Minneapolis, or “Miniapple” as it’s jokingly called in the movie, she has set her sights back on him. The appeal, she tells us, is that’s when she was at her best.  It takes the nerdy comedic sidekick Matt, played with wounded nuance by Patton Oswald, to give some voice of reason in Mavis’ other-wise self-centered world.  Their friendship is an odd couple for sure, but we get that Mavis made mostly enemies and there might be no one left… just the kid that she and Buddy used to laugh about in high school, got mistaken for gay and became the target of a hate crime by bullying football players that left him physically and emotionally handicapped. It’s nice to see Elizabeth Reaser as Buddy’s wife, Beth in this movie.  After a substantial guest appearance run on Gray’s Anatomy, she’s been relegated lately to vampire mom to the Twilight Saga Cullens. She’s got a role here with a little meat, and pure joy shows on her face in the scene where her garage band gigs out with her on the drums. The hate wonderfully palpable from Mavis. 

What you’ll love is once again Cody delivers and unconventional script, maybe lacking a little in the hipness of Juno, but definitely surprising and funny.  Not guffaw funny, but delightful little moments that unveil themselves one after another. Not your typical romantic comedy, this movie is smart and gritty and complex.    

 What you’ll love a little less is the movie holds strong until the resolution which seems rushed and has a few holes. The big conflict comes in a scene where weknow what’s gone on with Mavis, and Matt knows, but nowhere else in the movie has anyone else really seen behind the front she’s put on. Yet here they all are offering up reasons for their actions towards her when they should be clueless.  And then, spoiler alert, there was the kiss.  The final scene gives nod to the fact that people don’t change and certainly not Mavis, but there was an equally more finessed way out that would have given the same result.  We’re left to believe that Mavis is still the same, mean person that she came back home as, but she is not.  Her friendship with Matt showed that.  On some level, as often happens when we get older, Mavis doesn’t care what people will say about her anymore.  And people often offer up invitations that they never mean and the person on the other side knows they are empty. Polite and empty. As a result, the wonderful ride you’ve just been taken on suddenly doesn’t add up as much anymore.  Easy fixes, yet gone unnoticed except by audience and critics. The only reason to point them out is more wistful… this was almost a perfect film. Theron should surely take home that Golden Globe. 

Check out the trailer: