Young Adult (2011)

Juno landed like an atom bomb. Diablo Cody's zeitgeist script mixed with the chemistry of Elliot Page and Micheal Cera became a cultural phenomenon in the winter of 2007-8. Millennial hipsters and their boomer parents, along with everyone in between, flocked to see this little slice of plucky Midwestern smarm. Cody's script won an Oscar, and Juno was nominated for Best Picture.  Diablo Cody was supernova, but this began to fade as her follow-up Jennifer's Body stumbled at the box office in 2009. Here we have her 3rd script and 2nd film with Reitman, 2011's Young Adult starring the motley crew of Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt, and Patrick Wilson. The film is almost unclassifiable: black comedy or doomed romance or domestic horror. Cody's dark script with Reitman's lowkey direction creates an uncanny valley between pity and empathy. Young Adult is Diablo Cody's very personal nightmare about what might have been, and we attempt to psychoanalyze her distraught fever dream.