I admit it, films like this comic/drama freak me out and characters like Charlise Theron’s Mavis Gary make me want to hide. A depressed, divorced, narcissistic, alcoholic, arrogant bitch/former prom queen, she ghost-writes a series of young adult novels that has run its course. She sets out to woo her hometown boyfriend away from his wife and new baby. All of these people are, like real Minnesotans, nicer than nice (and yes they really are!). OK, some, like the Nazis and crazy reactionaries up there aren’t, but I digress. She meets up with Matt, wonderfully played by Patton Oswald, a dweeby guy who she disdained as a ‘theater fag’ in high school who had been beaten in a gay-bashing incident that left him crippled. He wasn’t gay but is now truly crippled. He gets her, and is willing to let her know who she is. He has a wonderfully dark self-consciousness. He also cares about her as only those of us who have spent our adolescences wishing the world accepted us know. And spoiler alert: what’s really different is that this is a creepy/funny/weird and interesting film where the protagonist reaches bottom and, with the help of one hopeful acolyte, retreats from self-understanding and regains her equilibrium as the asshole she has become Most people want her to get the help she needs but this is a fascinating look at a breakdown that yields no self-understanding. It doesn’t make sense and there’s no reason it would happen like this. In fact it makes the film even more of a strange and fantastic voyage. Bravo for that, but it’s a really cringe-inducing trip