Film
Young Adult
Charlize Theron plays a boozy, self-mythologizing YA novelist who drives back to her hometown convinced she can win back an ex-boyfriend who has since become a contented husband and father. Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman refuse every softening beat — no redemption arc, no lesson learned. It's a mean, funny, quietly devastating character study for anyone who's confused nostalgia for destiny.
If you liked this
Tully2018
Theron, Cody and Reitman reunite for another unsparing look at a woman drowning in the gap between who she was and who she's become — funnier and gentler, but cut from the same cloth.
But It trades Mavis's cruelty for something sadder and more tender — if you wanted more venom, this one's softer stuff.

Juno2007
Cody's breakout script, all quick-fire dialogue and prickly charm, shows where Mavis's smart-mouthed self-delusion comes from — a teenage voice grown up mean.
But Its warmth and neat resolution are everything Young Adult refuses to offer; if you want bleakness, this feels too cozy.

Election1999
Reese Witherspoon's Tracy Flick is Mavis's spiritual ancestor: brilliant, awful, utterly convinced she deserves more than everyone around her, and the film never asks you to like her.
But It's more overtly satirical and plot-driven than Young Adult's slow, squirming character study — less mood, more mechanism.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Sunset Boulevard1950
Both are unflinching portraits of women who mistake their own myth for reality and refuse to let the story move on without them — Mavis just does it with a laptop instead of a mansion.
Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond is the original woman convinced that yesterday's glory is still hers to reclaim — grand, gothic, and the blueprint for every delusional comeback story since.
But It's melodrama pitched to the rafters, black-and-white and decades removed — nothing like Young Adult's flat, contemporary deadpan.

More like this (8)
Sideways2004
Two men stumbling toward middle age with denial and wine in hand — the same queasy comedy of watching adults refuse to grow up, played for laughs that catch in your throat.
But It's gentler and more forgiving of its characters' self-pity than Young Adult ever is toward Mavis.

Greenberg2010no page yet
Ben Stiller plays a fortysomething man who never got over his own specialness, prickly and unlikeable in exactly the way Mavis is — a companion piece in arrested-development portraiture.
But It's slower and more meandering, with less plot and fewer big laughs to carry you through the discomfort.
The Skeleton Twins2014no page yet
Siblings returning to their hometown to confront old wounds, black comedy shot through with real grief — a warmer cousin to Young Adult's homecoming disaster.
But It ultimately believes in healing in a way Young Adult pointedly does not; the catharsis here is real.
You Can Count on Me2000
A messier, more reckless sibling returns home and disrupts everyone's careful lives — quieter and kinder than Young Adult, but built from the same homecoming wreckage.
But It's a gentler, more traditionally redemptive drama; the discomfort here is mild compared to Mavis's scorched earth.

Obvious Child2014no page yet
A comedian navigating a life that isn't going anywhere near where she planned, funny and unflinching about being a mess without apologizing for it, much like Mavis.
But It's far more likable and hopeful than Young Adult; the sting is much softer.
Krisha2016no page yet
A woman returns to a family gathering carrying years of addiction and denial with her, shot with jittery, suffocating dread — the queasiest possible homecoming.
But This is raw, low-budget and genuinely stressful to watch, with none of Young Adult's dark comic relief.
Grey Gardens1976
Same arrested self-mythology as Mavis, but lived rather than performed; it asks what happens when the delusion never gets a hometown to disrupt, just a house to rot in.
A real mother and daughter, trapped in a crumbling mansion and an even more crumbling fantasy of who they used to be — funnier, sadder, and stranger than fiction could invent.
But It's a documentary with no plot to speak of, just two women bickering inside their own myth — patience required.

Heathers1989
Young Adult is what happens when someone from this world never leaves it; Heathers shows the mean-girl mythology at its source, before the hangover Mavis never sobers up from.
High school as a battlefield of cruelty and status, pitch-black and gleefully savage — everything Mavis privately believes about popularity, shown from the inside while it's still happening.
But It's far more violent and cartoonish, teenage rather than adult, and wears its satire on its sleeve instead of under it.

People
Cast
Charlize TheronMavis Gary
Patton OswaltMatt Freehauf
Patrick WilsonBuddy Slade
Elizabeth ReaserBeth Slade
Collette WolfeSandra Freehauf
Jill EikenberryHedda Gary
Richard BekinsDavid Gary
Kate NowlinMary Ellen Trantowski
Jenny Dare PaulinNipple Confusion Bassist- Rebecca HartNipple Confusion Guitarist
Louisa KrauseFront Desk Girl
Directing
- Jason ReitmanDirector
Writing
- Diablo CodyWriter
Production
- Jessica KellyCasting
- Suzanne Smith CrowleyCasting
- Beth KonoCo-Producer
- Kelli KonopCo-Producer
- Mary LeeCo-Producer
- Helen EstabrookExecutive Producer
- John MalkovichExecutive Producer
- Nathan KahaneExecutive Producer
- Steven M. RalesExecutive Producer
- Diablo CodyProducer
- Jason ReitmanProducer
- Lianne HalfonProducer
- Mason NovickProducer
- Russell SmithProducer