FILM

USA 2011 94 mins Dir: Jason Reitman Starring: Charlize Theron, Patrick Wilson, Patton Oswalt, Elizabeth Reaser

"From the writer and director of 'Juno'" is quite a selling point, but it also sets the bar very high. Their intervening projects - Diablo Cody's 'Jennifer's Body' and Jason Reitman's 'Up in the Air' - were nowhere near as successful. And while this concise indie cringe-comedy benefits from Cody's zingy, if mercifully toned-down dialogue, while providing Charlize Theron with her best role in years, it also feels rather uncomfortably like yet another salvo in Hollywood's ongoing war on the contentedly unmarried and child-free.

Theron's Mavis Gary could be a damaged second cousin of Cameron Diaz's Bad Teacher. A heavy-drinking late-thirtysomething given to one-night-stands, her job as a ghostwriter of young adult fiction is coming to an end. Her only companion is a yappy little dog, following a divorce about which we learn nothing. At a crossroads in her life, Mavis packs up the mutt and returns from Minneapolis to the small town where she grew up, determined to reconnect with her high-school boyfriend, Buddy Slade (Wilson). In a bar, she encounters geeky loner ex-classmate Matt Freehauf (Oswalt), whose life hasn't moved on since he was disabled in a school bullying incident. He points out that Mavis's plan is a really bad idea, since Buddy is now married and has a life. "He hasn't got a life," she snorts. "He's got a baby. Babies are boring!"

So the stage is set for the inevitable hugely embarrassing watch-through-your-fingers showdown as this inebriated prom queen-gone-to-seed attempts to seduce her domesticated ex-lover away from his homely, conspicuously less attractive spouse (Reaser). At least Reitman and Cody have the good sense not to spoil the sour laughs with a redemptive ending, but some may find Mavis just too damn unsympathetic as a result. (Robin Askew)

Website www.youngadultmovie.com/

Opens: February 3

Copyright Robin Askew 2012