Diablo Cody is Better Than You, Just Ask Her

Psyche!

I'm sneaking in one more post before the new year. The reason? Well, it's a Christmas tradition for my family and I to watch the screeners I got for being in the Writers Guild, and one of them was the movie Young Adult. It inspired me to be with you here today. Actually, just one scene from the movie inspired me. But I'll get back to that in a second...

Diablo Cody is somewhat of a controversial figure. People love her. People hate her. This is mostly because of the movie Juno. Some people thought it was amazing, others wanted to murder it.

I liked Juno. Some of the dialogue was annoying, but overall I enjoyed it. I skipped Jennifer's Body, because I hate horror movies even more than I love Megan Fox's boobies. And I hate The United States of Tara. I mean, I really fucking hate it. I feel like that show will be on in a rerun in 10 years and people will be like, "man, things have really changed in TV, I can't believe that was once acceptable". It wasn't! It was never acceptable!

Back to Young Adult, her third feature. I don't think you can call it a good movie. At best, it's okay, definitely not awful. Charlize Theron is great, and should win awards. But the movie, well, it shouldn't. But I admired it.

There is a crazy consensus in the film world that protagonists must be "likeable". Every meeting you ever go in you will hear, "make him/her likeable". It's stupid. Unlikeable people are fun to watch too, you know.

Plus, put a famous actor in any role and he/she will be a little likeable just because we know who they really are (on the flip side, put Katherine Heigl in any role and she will be immediately unlikeable). Was Tony Soprano likeable? Not entirely. Was it an awesome show? Yes. Why? Because assholes are interesting.

It probably took someone of Diablo Cody's stature to get this movie made. You and I couldn't sell this movie. So it's cool that she took the risk and made something about a bitch. And she did it in a non traditional movie way where there isn't a happy ending and things don't get neatly tied up. So good for her.

Let's be clear: this movie did not fail because it has unlikeable protagonist, it failed because it isn't funny enough. But that's a different matter entirely. Of course, studios aren't going to understand this and we're not going to get another unlikeable protagonist for the next 30 years.

I also think Diablo Cody is a darn good writer. Say what you want about her way too cute dialogue, for the most part, her story shit is on point. She knows what she is doing with structure, etc. Let me give you an example:

SPOILER ALERT

There's a moment in the film that felt false. It's when Theron's old high school boyfriend that she's trying to win over invites her to his newborn's naming ceremony. Because of some scenes before it, it felt like he wouldn't do that, he wouldn't invite her. And you're thinking, "oh well, that's a miss. I don't believe he would do that".

And then it turns out that he didn't invite her out of the goodness of his heart, and in fact, he didn't want to invite her at all. So then you go "oh shit, this movie is better than me. I thought I was smarter than it, and then it said fuck you, I know what I'm doing".

That's a little thing, but it's professional. It's smart. And it uses the audiences movie watching experience against itself.

That being said, there is a very big miss at the end of this movie.

The film feels autobiographical. I think that's fair to say, right? It's about a female writer, in her mid '30's, who writes stories about young adults. It's annoying to think that Diablo Cody believes that Charlize Theron is an accurate representation of her. Ha! But even more annoying, was this scene:

Charlize has left her life in the big city to come back to her home town to break up her old boyfriend's marriage. She's drank herself almost to death. She's left lives ruined in her wake. She's a fucking nightmare mess of a woman.

And then at the end she runs into a girl she went to high school with. A girl who used to worship her. Charlize tries to tell the girl that she's not what she thinks, and she's actually a terrible person.

The girls says (I'm paraphrasing here): No, you're not. You're a hero to us. You left town, you went to the big city. We're the idiots. We're living shitty lives in this shitty town, but you went out and were brave and tried to do great things. You're right about us, we suck. Everyone who lives in a small town in middle America is a dope. They're not "living"! They're pathetic and dumb. But not you, you're amazing, so keep doing what you're doing, cause you're better than us. Please take me with you!

That seems to be the message of the movie. Diablo Cody is a hero. It doesn't matter how big of an asshole she is (or rather, this character is), she's awesome for leaving that crap life behind and going for the greatness of the "big city".

Really?

It's great to have an asshole character and take chances, but then at the very end to completely excuse that behavior and make it seem like the nice people are the dumb jerks? You can do every bad thing you want as long as you leave where you grew up to chase your dreams of writing shitty books? Very odd.

If anyone else saw this movie, let me know if I'm completely off base in this interpretation. The rest of you, carry on with your new year's plans, you dumb small town loving idiots.