'Young Adult' Clip: Charlize Theron Loses It On Elizabeth Reaser, Patrick Wilson (VIDEO)

One of the great joys of "Young Adult" is that its protagonist, Charlize Theron's Mavis Gary, is unrelenting in her awfulness: she's coarse, self-indulgent and socially and emotionally stunted. Every potential turning point for character development becomes the opposite, with Mavis digging deeper into her grave of narcissism. And it's an absolutely treat to watch.

It's a brave gambit by writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman, and as you can see from a new clip from the film, Charlize Theron pulls off the social self-destruction with aplomb. That should be no surprise, given what she said recently about her acting interests in a roundtable interview with the Hollywood Reporter.

"We have innately bad human behaviors that sometimes we can explain and justify," Theron said. "It's easy to say someone's an as*hole because they had this, this and this happen to them, so we have to forgive them. But what if someone was just an as*hole? That's interesting to me."

The film, which was highlighted at Monday's Gotham Film Awards, hits theaters on December 16th. Until then, enjoy this moment of insanity and this one, of more subtle awfulness. For the first clip below, make sure you're over 17; it's NSFW.