Arrested development
Prolonged adolescence becoming the norm
“Everyone gets old. Not everyone grows up.”
This is the motto of “Young Adult,” the latest romantic comedy written by Diablo Cody and directed by Jason Reitman. But this rom-com takes a new twist on the box-office age-old formula of star-crossed lovers destined for eternal bliss. Rather, this raunchy film turns this recipe on its head by depicting a neurotic woman stuck in perpetual adolescence living in a narcissistic world of her own delusions.
Oscar-winner Charlize Theron plays Mavis Gray, a 37-year-old going through a mid-life crisis. Recently divorced, Mavis struggles to complete the last book of “Waverly Prep,” a successful series of young adult novels that has just been discontinued. One-night stands, bouts of drunkenness and the odd twitch of pulling out her hair (literally), are not able to relieve Mavis’ angst. But when she receives an e-mail announcing the birth of her high-school sweetheart’s baby, Mavis sees the light. She decides to set out on a journey to reclaim her man by returning to her hometown, Mercury, Minnesota, where her long-lost love Buddy Slade, played by Patrick Wilson, resides with his wife.
For Mavis, Buddy’s wife, child and happy family life are simply “baggage” to be overcome. She plans on accomplishing this by seducing Buddy with her good looks, sexy attire and some alcohol. Yet even when Buddy rebuffs her advances and tells her how happily married he is, Mavis still continues to pursue her man, creating an alternate pseudo-reality where everything Buddy says and does points to their mutual love and ultimate destiny together.
Mavis’ steady diet of coke, junk-food, bon-bons and high doses of “Keeping up with the Kardashians,” paints a picture of a woman still living as a prepubescent child who renounces adulthood and reality. Her narcissism and selfishness is further highlighted during her scenes with Matt Freehauf, played by comedian Patton Oswalt. Matt, a former high school classmate was crippled after being beaten by jocks because they mistakenly believed he was gay. But the former prom queen cannot empathize with the tragedy that befell him or the serious repercussions he lives with. Rather, she prefers to whine about her plight and plan to steal another woman’s husband.
Mavis’ writer’s block parallels her own inability to move beyond the adolescent world she has created. Even after Mavis is publicly exposed and humiliated for her efforts to capture Buddy’s heart, she cannot acknowledge she is lost. Despite a brief breakdown and brush with reality, Mavis cannot accept responsibility for her actions and deep-seated issues. Nor is she willing to cut the umbilical cord and enter maturity by putting in the necessary hard work to lead a better life.
Rather, at the end of the movie, Mavis is egged on by Matt’s sister Sara, who reaffirms her delusional fantasy of being a successful, beautiful, happy woman on top of the world. Therefore, Mavis gets into her beat-up cabriolet to set off into the sunset—returning to the city where she rides the roller coaster of stunted development.
Ms. Cody, famous for penning “Juno,” paints a dark picture of an anti-heroine who refuses to grow up. She was inspired to write “Young Adult” after being constantly asked at press events why she is fixated on adolescents. As she contemplated her own life, she came to the conclusion that she was on to something. That is when she decided to make the protagonist of her next screenplay “a woman in her 30s who…cling[s] to deluded teenage fantasies in her real life, and is obsessed with recreating her teenage years come hell or high water.”
The arrested development Ms. Cody brilliantly depicts and Ms. Theron fabulously plays is not an isolated portrait. Rather, it is a growing phenomenon plaguing our nation. We are currently living in a culture that is obsessed with turning back the clock and denying old age. This obsession is more than skin deep and a concern for retaining one’s youthful appearance. This new generation is bent on denying adulthood and maturity.
Generation Y, also known as the Millennial Generation, is paving a longer road to adulthood. “A new period of life is emerging in which young people are no longer adolescents but not yet adults,” says Mr. Frank F. Furstenberg, head of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood.
For this Peter Pan Generation, adulthood doesn’t begin after college as it once used to. According to a recent study by the MacArthur Foundation, people between the ages of 20 and 34 are taking longer to complete their education, establish their careers, get married, start a family and be financially independent. The median age for getting married in 1980 was 23, now it is 27 for men and 26 for women. More and more women are also now having children for the first time in their late thirties. While many others are 40 and childless—something considered an anomaly in previous generations.
The report also notes that adults between 18 and 34 receive 10 percent of their income by their parents. Even public policy is perpetuating this phenomenon. Under Obamacare, adults up to the age of 26 are allowed to remain on their parent’s health insurance. Thus, further procrastinating the need for young adults to fend for themselves.
Marriage, children and financial independence were once considered milestones and a rite of passage into adulthood. Now, they are considered optional lifestyle choices. Mavis Gray, in all her drunken, debauched, amoral glory shows just how ugly and self-destructive this choice is. Adolescents beware.
-Loredana Vuoto is President of Eloquence, LLC, a speechwriting and writing services firm in Washington, DC. She is also the Editor of Reflections.