Youth in Revolt review

I think that by this point, pretty much every Arrested Development fan who's followed Michael Cera's movie career has wondered when he's going to stop playing the same character. You know the one: the brainy but awkward and passive 'nice guy,' the type that Michael Cera now defines so completely that the movie industry had to invent Jesse Eisenberg to take on the roles he turns down. After Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Year One which I didn't like and didn't see, respectively, I figured that his shtick needed to evolve or die. On that basis, I probably wouldn't have gone to see Youth in Revolt if I hadn't gotten a positive vibe from the trailer and read a couple good reviews of it. As a Michael Cera fan, I'm glad I did, because Youth in Revolt lets him out of his comfort zone, albeit just a bit, and the results are pretty funny.

The advertising for Youth in Revolt pitches it as a teen sex comedy in the vein of Superbad, (a film I think will be remembered as one of the deathless classics of the 2000s), but that's not really accurate. Where Superbad and the long line of preceding comedies of its type are mainly about how horniness and awkwardness create common bonds between teen boys, Youth in Revolt focuses almost exclusively on Nick Twisp (Michael Cera's character) and the circumstances that separate him from his love interest Sheeni Saunders. One of the pleasant surprises of Youth in Revolt is that Nick and Sheeni actually get into a semi-relationship early in the movie, which allows the movie to mostly avoid portraying Sheeni as a typical sex comedy love interest (i.e. an aloof and unattainable figure with a basically oblivious attitude toward the lead until the climax of the film). The dramatic tension mainly comes from Nick's efforts to reunite with Sheeni after a variety of circumstances conspire to separate them. The central gag of the movie is that Nick invents 'Francois Dillinger,' an alternative persona transparently based on Jean-Paul Belmondo's character in Breathless, to overcome the passivity that prevents him from taking bold action to pursue Sheeni.

The interplay between Nick and 'Francois' is one of the high points of Youth in Revolt. 'Francois' is the type of smooth, confident person who exists only in the imaginations of awkward people like Nick, who rely far too much on fiction for an understanding of what qualities other people find appealing and why, and Cera does a great job of working this evident fact into his performance. The sections where he plays 'Francois' are probably the best argument yet for Michael Cera as an actor with range. Suffice it to say that I'm really looking forward to what he'll pull off in this summer's Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.

Beyond Michael Cera-related matters, the most apt way I can describe Youth in Revolt is that it doesn't so much transcend the conventions of its genre as it tweaks them just enough so they aren't irritating. For instance, Nick and Sheeni basically use the same reference-heavy quirkspeak that was so retrospectively annoying in Juno, namechecking Yasujiro Ozu and Serge Gainesbourg and what have you, but instead of treating it as a signifier of how totally awesome the characters are, Youth in Revolt takes the far more realistic tack of using it to highlight how alienated they are from their surroundings. There's a great exchange early in the movie where Nick runs into a female classmate in a video store who then asks him what he's renting; when he shows her Fellini's La Strada, she exclaims "So random!" Then her boyfriend comes up behind her and asks him "Does that movie come with a tampon for your pussy?"

Youth in Revolt also benefits from its surprisingly strong supporting cast, which includes Ray Liotta, Steve Buscemi, Zach Galifianakis, Jean Smart, M. Emmet Walsh, and Fred Willard. The movie essentially focuses on Nick, rotating the background players in and out liberally as the plot progresses. The result is a constant parade of new characters, none of which are onscreen long enough to wear out their welcome. The best out of lot is Adhir Kalyan as Vijay, a hyper-articulate classmate of Nick's who helps him sneak into a French-speaking boarding school in one of the film's best sequences; I really wish he'd gotten more screen time.

In all, Youth in Revolt isn't exactly a movie that you'll kick yourself for missing in the theater, but it's definitely worth seeing, particularly for fans of Michael Cera who've been disheartened by his recent work. It's not a reinvention of the genre, but it's a well made and funny movie that does a great job of capitalizing on its strengths. At a minimum, keep it on your radar for DVD or cable.