Review: Youth In Revolt (2009)

Youth In Revolt (2009)

3.0

COMEDY/ROMANCE

U.S. Release Date: 01/08/10

Running Length: 90 Minutes

MPAA Classification: R (Profanity, Sexual Content, Drugs)

Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Cast: Michael Cera, Portia Doubleday, M. Emmett Walsh, Mary Kay Place, Jean Smart, Justin Long, Zach Galifianakis, Steve Buscemi, Ray Liotta, Fred Willard Director: Michael Arteta

Screenplay: Bustin Nash, based on the novel by C.D. Payne

Cinematography: Chuy Chavez

Music: John Swihart

U.S. Distributor: Dimension Films

Review by: Carter Moulton, for The State News

1/15/10

Youth In Revolt is an important film. It doesn’t advance the art of filmmaking like Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane or Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2. It doesn’t feature a new, revolutionary technology like Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park or James Cameron’s Avatar. It does, however, represent the new and exciting effort to establish Michigan’s film industry. The film was shot in different parts of the state, including Ann Arbor and Royal Oak—my high school, Brighton High School, is even in one scene.

Also of importance, though to a lesser level, is Michael Cera’s performance in this film. He plays Nick Twisp, an awkward teenager submerged in vinyl, literature and cardigans. Cera’s played the awkward card before in films like Superbad, Juno, and Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, starting with his role on Fox’s TV show, “Arrested Development.” There was a bubbling from critics and moviegoers alike that Cera didn’t actually know how to act and was merely playing himself; but this time, for the first time, it’s safe to say that Cera can indeed act, and his breakthrough comes in the form of an alter ego Twisp creates to win the Sheenie 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 Frenchmen—Sheenie loves France-—and a renegade criminal (think John Dillinger). This ego is created because Twisp, after spending the summer of a lifetime with Sheenie, is forced to move back to his old house with his mother and her disgusting boyfriend (raunchily played by Zach Galifinakis).

Sheenie 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 to Sheenie before Trent, Sheenie’s ex-boyfriend who resembles a Ralph Lauren model, wins her back 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 Sheenie’s home.

The whole cast—Cera, Doubleday, Buscemi, Galifanakis, even Ray Liotta—has chemistry enough to pull off this sometimes brilliant, mostly solid, occasionally mindless film. Francois Dillinger is everything Cera hasn’t played before: rebellious, confident, smooth, hardly satisfied, a smoker—he even has a mustache. Cera shows great depth as an actor, mostly because neither character is too over-the-top. Sure, Francois swallows a whole bag of mushrooms as Twisp watches in terror, but 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 black comedy, and the result is a tone that resembles Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love and Mike Nichol’s 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.