For the record (and review purposes, I suppose), I’m among the latter. Young Adult is the first of Reitman’s films from which I haven’t felt him choking out a message; ironically, its rawness yields the humanity that he thought he was wringing from Up in the Air in particular, which got nowhere by assaying only the effect and not the cause of various recession-era ruthlessness. He and Cody have turned that rock over, with Theron doing the impossibly heavy lifting of making a woman inclined to selfishness, irresponsibility and condescension somehow worth our time and interest — mostly because this film is aimed at a generation for whom each of Mavis’s darkest compulsions are never far from its own. Indeed, it’s easy to resent Mavis for not behaving better — for unleashing unthinkable malevolence on a populace that cannot or will not defend itself for whatever reason — or to dismiss Cody and Reitman as nothing more than charlatans hamfistedly bending the light of the zeitgeist. But keeping Young Adult’s big reveal in mind, the picture ultimately forces those around Mavis — both onscreen and off — to reconcile what they will and won’t tolerate from a woman.