Almost There: Charlize Theron in "Young Adult"

by Cláudio Alves

Ten years ago, Young Adult arrived in theaters, signaling the second collaboration between director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody. It was also the creative duo's first work alongside Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron. Polarizing to this day, the picture divided critics and audiences alike, even as it gained champions heading into awards season. Cody's work and Patton Oswald's supporting turn won many admirers, but Theron's acidic star turn proved to be the movie's biggest Oscar bid. While already blessed with much critical recognition for her dramatic efforts, the actress wasn't known for comedy. Her casting was, thus, a bit of an against-type choice and her success a surprise. 

In retrospect, it sounds silly that there were any doubters. A decade after its premiere, Young Adult shines bright as Charlize Theron's greatest achievement…

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Review: "The Front Runner"

by Chris Feil

Fresh off of delivering exacting holistic wisdom with frequent collaborator Diablo Cody in this past spring’s Tully, Jason Reitman is already back and pivoting hard into political commentary with The Front Runner. Detailing the combustion of Gary Hart’s 1988 presidential campaign due to the outting in the press of Hart’s not-so-secret affairs, the film stars Hugh Jackman as the prideful candidate fatally underestimating the public’s association between his character and marital fidelity. Reitman and cowriters Matt Bai and Jay Carson cover the unraveling in stringent attention to the timeline, while angling this as a key breakdown in the separation of political media consideration and tabloid press.

The result is something unintentionally passive, a film about a political candidate flailing against public expectations he refuses to assuage. The film itself is equally headstrong about satisfying on its own rather limited terms...

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Soundtracking: "Tully"

by Chris Feil

Despite being the most isolated character study of Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody’s collaboration, Tully still makes space for a subtle musical world inside its protagonist’s head. Tully is a story about motherhood and mental health, taking some big narrative risks as it moves towards healing. When music trickles in, it offers its own kind of mindful balm attuned to the psyche of Charlize Theron’s Marlo. It’s the most musically subtle of the Cody/Reitman empathy trilogy, but no less effective...

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Ranking Tully's Figures of Speech

Seven years after fucking up Charlize Theron’s silk, Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody teamed up again to fuck up just about every other fabric in her house in this year’s Tully. Here Theron plays Marlo, a soon-to-be mommy of three struggling to find any room for excitement or naps in her caffeine-deprived days. Enter Tully (Mackenzie Davis), the night nanny she hires to add some hours of sleep to her frustrations.

From the opening scene, Cody assures the audience she has no intention of grounding these characters in the reality that corresponds to them. Her script keeps this up throughout by frequently using figures of speech and occasional underwater reveries to buoy up the characters in their imagination. She reinforces the fantasies her script's players construct and dress themselves up in (from Tahitian home bars to cat ears headbands) with an equally rhetorical language. We've ranked enough of our favorite metaphors and similes from Tully that we can already hear the wheels of your high school English teacher’s TV cart rolling up to your classroom.

Ten of our favorite lines and very wet spoilers after the cut...

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Review: "Tully"

by Chris Feil

With Juno, screenwritwer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman made a quippy comedy on teen pregnancy with more subtlety than first meets the eye. Pairing again for Young Adult, they approached the bitter delusion of its alcoholic protagonist with patient and understated compassion. Now arrives their third collaboration Tully, an equally gracious and hilarious look at personal growth and self-awareness, this time with motherhood at the forefront.

It’s a special thing when we get even one great comedy with such a deep well of empathy for its subject, but Cody and Reitman have gifted us with an unimpeachable trilogy on empathy that challenges audience bias. And Tully is their riskiest entry yet.

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