Diablo Cody is back with 'Young Adult'

By Sarah Sluis

Screenwriter Diablo Cody soared with Juno and then crashed and burned with Jennifer's Body. Her next project will re-team her with Mandate Pictures, the folks that made Juno. Young Adult will center on a divorced writer of YA (young adult) books who goes back to the Heartland to stalk her ex-boyfriend, who's now married with a kid.

Charlize Theron is in contention to play the lead female role, and Jason Reitman, who showed he could translate Cody's tone in Juno, will direct. According to The Playlist blog, which read the screenplay, the script "largely [dispenses] with the annoying slang she's been tagged with and is refreshingly unhip." It also reveals that there's a third main role that needs to be cast. While she's chasing down her ex, she befriends a high school classmate who was beaten and crippled by jocks who thought he was gay, and now is overweight, disabled, and stuck in the town. It's a pretty gutsy backstory for a supporting character, almost as if a little piece of Boys Don't Cry is thrown in another movie, but for some reason I'm imagining this character as Damian in Mean Girls, who has a sense of humor about being bullied (not crippled, though) for being chubby and gay by his fellow classmates.

What's compelling about Young Adult is that the premise will once again invert audience expectations. Juno gave us a character who handled teen pregnancy in a manner against type, turning what's usually framed as a melodramatic, Lifetime TV movie situation into something upbeat and light-hearted. In Young Adult, Cody appears to do the same thing. Many a romantic comedy heroine has gone stalking and remained endearing to the audience, but Cody apparently makes her anti-hero unhinged, selfish, and not particularly likable. How refreshing!

Cody has a compelling, unique style, and I believe she has another Juno in her. Young Adult may be it.