Charlize Theron Gives You the ‘What For…’ in New Poster for ‘Young Adult’

Paramount has debuted a second poster for Jason Reitman‘s Young Adult starring Charlize Theron as Mavis Gary, a writer of teen literature who returns to her small hometown to relive her glory days and attempt to reclaim her happily married high school sweetheart (Patrick Wilson).

Last Friday I posted a trio of clips from the film and in the comments one person wrote, “The problem with these clips is that Charlize’s character comes across as a major a-hole so why would anyone care about her story.” As you can see from the poster, this isn’t a personality trait the film is attempting to avoid. As a matter of fact, it’s tackling it head on.

During the Los Angeles Q&A for the film screenwriter Diablo Cody (Juno) had this to say:

“This kind of film is a tough one to get made, particularly because Mavis does not have a classic redemption arc… I am of the mind that assholes don’t change. I just think people in general don’t necessarily change in the dramatic way that we see them change in the third act of movies. So it was very important for me to retain that realism and keep that alive. There are other versions of this movie that sort of exist in an alternate reality–like the romantic comedy version or the feel good version–and that was not the movie that I wanted to make, or that Jason wanted to make.”

The film’s much buzzed about co-star, Patton Oswalt, added to Cody’s comment saying, “How great that we got to show [the film] here in the New Beverly, where the audiences have been trained to watch movies like Five Easy Pieces and Fat City and The Conversation, where the protagonists do not change or, if anything, get even more embedded in how they are.” I have never seen Fat City, but the comparisons to Five Easy Pieces and The Conversation are more than enough to have me interested in this film. I can’t wait, but then again, you already knew that as this film made my list of “Top Ten Most Anticipated Films Coming Up in November and December 2011“.

Check out the poster below courtesy of HitFix and look for Young Adult on December 9. For more information on the film click here.

Photo: Paramount Pictures