There was an earlier thread about this scene, I'm gonna be lazy and copy/paste my response:
Throughout the whole film, Mavis is tugged between people who see her at surface level and praise her, and people who see deeper and urge her to change. Matt is both of those things in one person. He sees clearly that Mavis is dangerously self-centered, emotionally empty, and well along her way to being completely insane. And yet, he'll still give her everything she wants the moment she asks for it, because she's gorgeous.
For Mavis, the scene represents the way she is able to constantly sidestep facing reality and genuinely changing. Instead, she chooses to live off small boosts to her ego wherever she can find them. This allows her to keep convincing herself that she's fine, instead of listening to the people assuring her that she's not. Throughout the film, Matt's character seems to offer her only chance at redemption. It's the only relationship she has in the film that's based on mutual honesty and vulnerability, instead of power games and manipulation.
And yet, at her most vulnerable moment, when reality finally smacks her in the face hard enough to make her take notice, she pisses it all away. Her failure with Buddy should have taught her that she can't simply rely on her looks to make people do what she wants them to. Instead, she chose to assure herself that it still works with most men, even if it didn't with Buddy. She doesn't see Matt as a friend, she doesn't value his advice. In the end, she sees him as a nerdy, lonely cripple who will literally give her the shirt off his back for a chance to get in bed with her.
It's a very cynical message, but on some level I have to respect Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman for going all the way with Mavis's character. And whether or not it's a great movie, this scene is far from unnecessary.
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georgiaearl
12 years ago
I thought the scene was a bit of a stretch. That said, some good points have been made as to why she'd sleep w/Matt. IMO, as others have noted, she goes for the quick fix, and when her ego is low and/or she's feeling something other than 'good', she looks for anything that will take that neg. feeling away, whether it's alcohol or attention or deluded validation.
Matt had been there for her the entire trip, thru the good and the (mostly) bad. She had a real slap in the face at the party, her ego was LOW, and her carefully crafted reality had been sent into a tailspin.
I don't know if we're meant to believe that Mavis slept w/Matt as a way of trying out a new way of living (ie: being a better person), trying on a different personae ie: the loser she hears everyone at the party saying she is (fine, I'm a loser, no one wants me, I'll go to another loser. At least he still wants me. Etc.) or just as a quick fix. And I do see the point the OP and others have made that even at her lowest point Mavis would never sleep w/someone like Matt.
The way the scene was shot- Mavis gets (nearly) naked in front of Matt, both literally and symbolically, she lays herself bare- is meant to suggest that Mavis was peeling away the layers of her facade. Whether that's meant to suggest that she's trying to be more honest ie: 'better', or she's saying *beep* it, I give up', I don't know. I do think that part of her sleeping w/Matt was a pity *beep* payback for being nice to her when everyone else was so 'mean'. That would be a kind of currency she'd understand.
BTW, I loved this movie. I was also blown away by CT's performance. I've never given her the credit she deserves. I think she nailed the part and made the character so much more than it could've been simply played as written.
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