This movie takes no prisoners. The protagonist begins the movie a loser, and ends the movie a loser. She may have learned something along the way, but the film maker sort of leaves her development open ended. This movie represents another challenging character study by Jason Reitman, the film's director. This is his fourth film, and all four are provocative. "Juno", his second film, is a wonderful film which deserves its own blog entry. It's protagonist has a lot of the sass, but still ends her story in a redemptive light. Both in this film and in Reitman's third film, "Up in the Air," the main characters are narcissists who encounter a crisis. In both films, the story ends in an open ended way, and the viewer is left in the uncomfortable position of having no closure with characters who, despite their issue, have become sympathetic to the viewer.
Mavis (Charlize Theron) is a 37 year old writer who long ago left the small Minnesota town of her upbringing. She has moved on up to the big city of Minneapolis, and looks back on her home town with utter disdain. She has moved on to better things in her mind. The problem that becomes clear to the viewer is that she lives a pathetic life. Her life involves dragging herself out of bed, downing booze and Diet Coke, having shallow sex, and then congratulating herself on escaping her small town upbringing. Into this existence comes a bombshell...her old boy friend sends her a birth announcement. He and his wife have had a daughter. Mavis convinces herself that her old boyfriend Buddy is in desperate need of saving from the shackles of domestic life. She travels back to her home town to "save" him. While there, she meets an old high school classmate Matt (Will Patton) who had once idolized her. Now, he walks with a crutch after he was beaten almost to death in high school because some students thought he was gay, though he was and is not. Mavis begins her mission, but it becomes clear very soon that the people she grew up with are not the people who need saving.
This movie is a great platform for the acting talents of Theron. Here, though she still retains her natural beauty in some scenes, she is called upon to look trashy and washed up in many scenes. She is completely believable as she inhabits her role. She looks tired and worn out by life, and the look that the make up and costume people did for her character makes the character very believable. She still has her beauty, but she has let herself go. She is cowering into a world in which she has no attachments and nothing to tell her that she lives a pathetic life. She begins a friendship with the man who once idolized her, and this man acts sort of like Jiminy Cricket to her Pinocchio. He tries to steer her away from her actions, but in the end she is so delusional that she attempts to win over her married ex-boyfriend anyway.
The movie has a lot to say about happiness, projection and perception. Mavis is miserable, and yet she projects that misery onto others. Hence, she perceives her ex-boyfriend as a miserable man, even though he is happy. In the end, she is challenged and becomes aware that maybe she is the miserable one and everyone else is happy. There is one thing left to note. There is an actress who plays Matt's sister. Her name is Collette Wofle. She is only on the screen for a few moments, but in those moments she becomes utterly familiar to us. She is a sycophant. As Mavis ruminates over the pathetic state of her life, Sandra listens in shock to discover that the woman who she always thought so cool is so miserable. As Sandra reels Mavis back into her delusion, we understand Sandra. She is the person who always thinks the grass is greener on the other side. She is the voice of all of our insecurities, as we looks to people we think are cooler and more sophisticated.
Jason Reitman is on quite a good run as a director. It is always fun to have film makers to follow and anticipate their next piece of work.
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