crush on his cousin), it's perfect. But Cera's basically been playing variations of George Michael ever since, which has led to a lot of people experiencing a sort of Cera fatigue. (I know more than one person who pretty much hates him because he always seems to be doing the exact same thing in everything he does.)Youth In Revolt is a movie that directly plays on Cera's on-screen persona. He plays Nick Twisp, a shy Michael Cera type who falls for Sheeni, a girl at the trailer park his mom and her boyfriend have forced him to spend his summer at. After hearing about Sheeni's too-cool boyfriend, Nick creates a new persona for himself, the devil-may-care, cigarette-smoking Francois Dillinger. Francois appears as another character who only Nick can see, and he's the exact opposite of Nick (and by extension, the Cera Persona).
With Youth In Revolt, Cera does prove that he can go outside of his usual stuttering-geek wheelhouse, and most of the scenes with him in character as Francois are hilarious. Cera's also surrounded by an able supporting cast, including Zach Galifianakis, Justin Long, Ray Liotta, Steve Buscemi and the always-game Fred Willard, and they're all doing solid, funny work.
The main problem that the movie can't string together enough quirky, vaguely funny scenes to ov
ercome is the fact that the character of Sheeni (who, as the girl Nick is pursuing, is sort of the primary driver of the plot) is sort of horrible. She's pretentious, manipulative and appears to take great pleasure in messing with Nick, always happy to mention her mysterious, apparently perfect boyfriend, Troy, to make Nick feel jealous and inadequate. Which, considering every action our hero takes is in pursuit of her, ends up undermining the movie. I was sort of amused for much of Youth In Revolt's running time, but I never actually cared about Nick or whether or not he won Sheeni. Many of the characters are funny and eccentric, but none of them are what I'd call likeable or engaging, so I never cared about what happened to any of them. And I certainly didn't care if Nick ended up with Sheeni.
Youth In Revolt exists halfway between something close to reality and the absurd fantasy-world of movies by filmmakers like Wes Anderson and Napoleon Dynamite's Jared Hess. Almost every character in the movie except for Nick has a weird eccentricity that feels manufactured and put-on, with the exceptions of Nick's dual father figures of his actual father 
(Buscemi) and his mom's boyfriend (Galifianakis), who are both blue-collar slobs that the movie really seems to look down on.
Overall there are movies that cover much of the same ground that are funnier and more observant than Youth In Revolt. The biggest thing I got out of watching this movie was reassurances for the upcoming Scott Pilgrim vs. The World that there's more to Michael Cera than his Arrested Development shtick. And there is, but unfortunately it's been largely wasted with this film. The good news is, Scott Pilgrim hits theaters in just over a month. Now that movie looks awesome.
GRADE: C
Labels: comedy, DVD review
¶ 11:27 AM
