Diablo Cody Loses Her Schtick

Despite the phenomenal success of Diablo Cody's debut as screenwriter, Juno came with a huge backlash. Too many find her dialogue unbearably cute and stylized.

The opening scene of Juno (between Ellen Page and Rainn Wilson) in particular is hard to sit through with every line sounding like it came straight from a snarky blog. Rather than forgive this as a rookie mistake, many have called her undeserving of the Oscar and all the success.

Charlize Theron | Young Adult

With Young Adult, we see Diablo Cody mature as a writer as she explores themes of maturity. Together with Charlize Theron, Cody has given us a truly unlikable character in what is actually a conventional romantic comedy. The difference here though is that it judges the heroine harshly for being truly pathetic and fucked up.

This is refreshing in a year which brought us What's Your Number where Anna Faris pursued her love interest with the same level of insanity as Theron only Faris has the gaul to expect us to root for her.

Young Adult is missing zingers though. While this may win over Cody's detractors, I thought it needed more of her signature sass.

What is missing from the screenplay Charlize Theron makes up for in performance. Excuse the cliche but if looks could kill, well, Theron is deadly but some scenes struggled to find its mean streak.

I'm all for a screenwriter becoming more matured and more measured moving forward but this was neutered.

It felt as though the writer had started listening to her own critics.