Since “Arrested Development,” Michael Cera has been perfecting the role he made famous as George Michael Bluth, rarely changing his on-screen persona of the skittishly funny, awkwardly sentimental dork. For some, including myself, the Michael Cera character has gone from refreshing to dull over the course of just a few years. So it was with reluctance that I watched Cera’s latest incarnation of his monotone teenage outsider in Youth in Revolt.
Director Miguel Arteta adapts C.D. Payne’s novel series of the same name with the kind of cutesy indie sensibility that Garden State so adeptly made distasteful. However, though the little animation sequences and college radio songs have become de facto elements of this type of film, Youth in Revolt stands as an example of how they can be used effectively to complement a story rather than serve as a distraction from an absence of plot.
Cera plays Nick Twisp. In what begins merely as another gotta-get-laid-before-whenever movie, Nick meets Sheeni (Doubleday), the Becall to his Bogey, the French-film-adoring, vinyl-loving girl whose direct demeanor disarms him completely. Their summer tryst falls short, and at her solicitation, Nick decides to adopt a new personality, a rebellious ne’er-do-well who scoffs at authority called Francois Dillinger, in a hare-brained attempt to be reunited with Sheeni.
Michael Cera proves that, in the right film, his off-beat phrases and awkward silences still hold humor and can add some depth and sympathy. In fact, most of Cera’s on-screen peers speak in the same witty, flat cadence, as if their strong teenage emotions are made more bearable when voiced without feeling, a common defense mechanism and a tone that works well in this movie without stifling its underlying heart. Also, we do get to see Cera stretch himself ever-so-slightly as his own self-created Tyler Durden-like alter ego wherein he plays a dorky American teen invoking the spirit of Godard’s super cool ’60s French protagonists (many of whom, themselves, were modeled after American anti-heroes of the ’40s noirs, full circle).
The film quickly detours from the getting laid focus and morphs into the disastrous and sweet story of a nice guy going bad, all in the name of love, with amusing results. It drags at parts, and yes, its appeal is mostly limited to foreign-film-watching, vintage-cloths-wearing, record collectors, but on the whole, this film seems to contain a bit more truth about this subculture than others of its ilk, with appearances by Zack G., Justin Long, and Steve Buscemi.
