What do you get when you mix Up in the Air director Jason Reitman and Juno writer Diablo Cody with Academy Award-winning actress Charlize Theron? You get a recipe for one of the most uncomfortably good comedies of the season.

I have to say that I've never felt so jarred by a Character Approved Theron performance. In Young Adult, she plays novelist Mavis Gary, a fiction writer who returns to her small hometown in Minnesota to find an old flame who got away. On the surface, she seems to be the beauty queen success story. At least, that is how she sees herself.

Theron plays a character who is painfully self-absorbed. It's hard to watch without cringing, but that's because the role is so well executed. Although you may pity Mavis Gary, you will always sigh and laugh at her honest antics as she tries to win the affections of someone who is no longer interested in her.

This is one of Charlize Theron's best performances since she won the Oscar for Monster in 2004. Young Adult is in theaters now.

[Image Paramount Pictures]