Michael Cera, left, and Portia Doubleday star together in “Youth in Revolt.”
“Youth In Revolt,” doesn’t advance the art of filmmaking like Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” or Federico Fellini’s “8 1/2,” and it doesn’t feature a new, revolutionary technology like Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” or James Cameron’s “Avatar.”
However, “Youth In Revolt” is an important film, as it represents the new and exciting effort to establish Michigan’s film industry. Parts of the film were shot throughout the state, including Ann Arbor, Royal Oak and even my high school.
What’s also important to note from the film is Michael Cera’s performance as Nick Twisp, an awkward teenager submerged in vinyl, literature and cardigans.
Cera has played the awkward card several times over in films such as “Superbad,” “Juno” and “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” and started the staple with his role on Fox’s TV show, “Arrested Development.”
Although there was a bubbling from critics and moviegoers alike that Cera didn’t actually know how to act and was merely playing himself, this time (for the first time) it’s safe to say that Cera definitely can act. His breakthrough comes in the form of an alter ego Twisp creates to win Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday) — the girl of his dreams.
Twisp gives his alter ego the name of Francois Dillinger, combining the calm, romantic essence of a Frenchman — Saunders loves France — and a renegade criminal (think John Dillinger).
This ego is created after Twisp spends the summer of a lifetime with Saunders and is forced to move back to his old house with his mother and her disgusting boyfriend (raunchily played by Zach Galifianakis).
Saunders and Twisp’s relationship seems to have “summer fling” written all over it, but Twisp is determined and has a plan. The only way he can get back Saunders from Saunders’ ex-boyfriend Trent is to get kicked out of his mother’s house and move in with his father (Steve Buscemi), who takes a job not far from Saunders’ home.
The whole cast — Cera, Doubleday, Buscemi, Galifianakis, even Ray Liotta — has enough chemistry to pull off this sometimes brilliant, mostly solid, occasionally mindless film.
Dillinger is everything Cera hasn’t played before: a rebellious, confident, smooth, hardly satisfied smoker — complete with a mustache. Cera shows great depth as an actor, mostly because neither character is too over-the-top.
Although Dillinger exhibits some outrageous behavior, including swallowing a whole bag of mushrooms as Twisp watches in terror, one never loses sight of the threads that connect the two personalities.
Director Miguel Arteta visualizes the film, which is based off C.D. Payne’s novel from 1993, as a black comedy, and the result is a tone that resembles Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Punch-Drunk Love” and Mike Nichols’ “The Graduate.”
“Youth In Revolt” isn’t as good as those films, mainly because that tone is sporadically abandoned, but it’s definitely good enough to springboard Cera to the next level of his career.
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