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Patton Oswalt is, in a way, the key to the film's success. Theron is flawless at playing a cringe-inducing monster and Wilson touching as a nice guy who hates to offend her, but the audience needs a point of entry, a character we can identify with, and Oswalt's Matt is human, realistic, sardonic and self-deprecating. He speaks truth to Mavis.

Though he's had many supporting parts, this is only Oswalt's second major role; he was wonderful a few years ago in "Big Fan," the story of a loser who lived through his fantasy alter ego as a "regular caller" to sports talk radio. Patton Oswalt is a very particular actor, who is indispensable in the right role, and I suspect Reitman and his casting director saw him in "Big Fan" and made an inspired connection with Matt.

As for Mavis, there's an elephant in the room: She's an alcoholic. "I think I may be an alcoholic," she tells her hometown parents during an awkward dinner. Anyone who says that knows damn well they are. But civilians (and some of the critics writing about this film) are slow to recognize alcoholism. On the basis of what we see her drinking on the screen, she must be more or less drunk in every scene. She drinks a lot of bourbon neat. I've noticed a trend in recent movies: Few characters have mixed drinks anymore. It's always one or two fingers, or four or five, of straight booze in a glass.

Alcoholism explains a lot of things: her single status, her disheveled apartment, her current writer's block, her lack of self-knowledge, her denial, her inappropriate behavior. Diablo Cody was wise to include it; without such a context, Mavis would simply be insane. As it is, even in the movie's last scene, she reminds me of what Boss Gettys says of Citizen Kane: "He's going to need more than one lesson. And he's going to get more than one lesson."

After I left the screening of "Young Adult," my thoughts were mixed. With "Thank You for Smoking," "Juno" and "Up in the Air," Jason Reitman has an incredible track record. Those films were all so rewarding. The character of Mavis makes "Young Adult" tricky to process. As I absorbed it, I realized what a fearless character study it is. That sometimes it's funny doesn't hurt.