Minneapolis Star Tribune contributor Claude Peck caught last Wednesday’s screening of Jason Reitman‘s Young Adult in Edina, Minnesota, and yesterday filed a two-paragraph mini-review (which I’ve re-formatted into four graphs).

Charlize Theron in Young Adult

“Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody‘s new collaboration shares some stylistic notes with Juno — a pop-saturated soundtrack, a woman-child stuck between adolescence and adulthood, a droll appreciation of daily life in suburbia.

“It’s also a step in a new direction, both for the creative team and for movies, a mature and humane comedy centered on a misanthropic female antihero.

“Think of it as Juno‘s wicked stepsister.

“Charlize Theron plays Mavis Gary, a divorced writer (or, as she prefers it, ‘author’) of ‘Sweet Valley High’-style teen novels. Though she’s in her 30s, she’s still obsessed with her former high school sweetheart, Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson), who is married and is a new dad. Mavis returns to her hometown to reclaim her man, oblivious to the fact that he is happy with his life. A comedy of real awkwardness ensues.”

Is ESPN/Grantland‘s Bill Simmons ever going to review this thing? Did he ever say anything at all about Moneyball? I thought he was going to weigh in on movies from time to time and expand his range beyond sports. He’s starting to disappoint me.