Youth in Revolt

Youth in Revolt

90 Minutes








Following in the footsteps of Superbad and Adventureland, comes yet another coming-of-age sex-comedy, Youth in Revolt. The king of the genre himself, Michael Cera, plays - you guessed it - an awkward teenager awkwardly looking for love (or, in this case, sex). If the movie sounds a bit predictable, it is. It never really escapes its genre conventions. Youth in Revolt tries hard to look and sound different, but in the end, the differences are merely superficial.

Nick Twisp (Michael Cera) is a sensitive, hyper-literate teenager who longs to escape the virginal purgatory that his sensitivity and hyper-literacy have stuck him in. When his menopausal white trash mother (Jean Smart) and her sleazy boyfriend (Zach Gafianakilis) find themselves in trouble, they drag Nick with them to a trailer park outside of town. There, Nick meets the ultra-religious neighbors' daughter, Sheeni Saunders (newcomer Portia Doubleday), who is not only hot, but even more precocious and offbeat than Nick is. Sheeni is a die-hard Francophile (and coincidentally looks like a teen Anna Karina) who, unlike Nick, knows who directed Tokyo Story. Nick is instantly smitten.

But there's trouble in paradise. Just as Nick's relationship with Sheeni begins to blossom, his "vacation" comes to an end, and he has to go back home. In order to keep the relationship going, Nick has to do some very bad things; things that are against his milquetoast nature. To compensate, Nick creates an alter-ego named Francois Dillinger who is modeled after Sheeni's heartthrob, Jean Paul Belmondo. Francois is everything that Nick is not - tough, rebellious, crazy, French and good with the ladies. What follows is a buddy comedy of sorts as Francois, the id, battles with Nick, the ego, over how to win over Sheeni. It's Pierrot Le Fou meets Better Off Dead by way of Fight Club.

The main attraction of the movie is seeing Michael Cera indulge his dark side and participate in some downright sociopathic behavior. Cera is a likeable performer, but his nice guy shtick is getting a little tired; even his character on "Arrested Development" had more of an edge than his recent characters have had. So it's fun to see him cut loose as Francois (even if he is mysteriously missing the French accent). In fact, the movie could have benefited with even more Francois. However, Cera is supported by a solid ensemble. They all do a good job considering there isn't much for them to play; all the adults are grotesque caricatures. Steve Buscemi, Zach Galifianakis, and M. Emmet Walsh are wasted in what are essentially cameos, while Fred Willard, Ray Liotta and Smart fare better. Doubleday makes an impressionable screen debut as Sheeni. But for all of Sheeni's manufactured quirks, there isn't much of a character there. She is merely an object of desire.

This may due to a problem with the book-to-film adaptation. The source material for Youth in Revolt was a 499 word book that was written as a series of journals. This may also explain why the narrative structure is loose, meandering and episodic. I've never read the source material, so I cannot attest to the fidelity of the adaptation. However, I can say a good deal of the dialogue sounds like it was taken directly from the book. And while it's witty, intelligent, and well-written, it's also stilted and it's not organic at all. It has the feel of something written for the page and not the spoken word.

Making matters worse, the director, Miguel Arteta (Chuck and Buck, The Good Girl), seems to have mistaken quirkiness with originality and lays it on thick. Irritatingly, the movie screams indie film clichés. From the precious indie rock music to the cloying animation sequences to the annoying self-awareness of the characters, Youth in Revolt can be a chore to sit through. Thank God for Francois.

by James Shelledy