In the movie, “Young Adult”, Charlize Theron plays the 37 year-old, Mavis, faced with the reality that her best-selling teen novel series is getting canceled, her high school sweetheart just had a baby, and she probably has a serious drinking problem.  The movie takes place in Minneapolis, MN, or the “mini-apple” where Mavis has lived since graduating college and leaving the small town life she once knew.  She decides to go back home to win back her high school sweetheart but becomes overwhelmed with unpredicted challenges.

Mavis, like all young adults, wants to go back in time and figure out where she went wrong.  She faces the challenge of letting go of the past and facing her own reality.  She is wondering where the time went and struggles to move on after realizing certain chapters of her life are over.  One of the hardest parts about growing up is accepting you cannot fix the past, you can only work on the present and plan for the future.  We all plan for our future to go one way or another, but life is not that easy.  We become “adults” by facing those challenges head on and rising above.  I would recommend this movie to anyone in their mid-twenties to late thirties as that is when the real “growing up” takes place (or so I’m told).

My rating:  4/5 stars