Youth in Revolt (2009)

It's been said that Michael Cera only plays the same character - the gangly, awkward teenager with his unrequited emotions on his sleeve and a mouth full of verbose non sequiturs. In a sense, Youth in Revolt is a response to that theory; here Cera plays a character desperate to reinvent himself as a "dangerous" casanova. This reinvention is fascinating, but much else about Youth in Revolt is otherwise fairly forgettable, marking potential but leaving the audience with little more than in-the-moment laughs.

Cera stars as the unfortunately named Nick Twisp, the standard Cera character, forced to relocate to a trailer park after his mother (Jean Smart) and her lover Jerry (Zach Galifianakis) are involved in selling a dud car to a few sailors. There Nick meets Manic Pixie Dream Girl Sheeni (Portia Doubleday), a girl he recognizes instantly as the love of his life despite the fact that she's already seeing someone. Sheeni's less convinced, encouraging him to "be bad" so that the two can move closer together once Nick is forced to move in with his father (Steve Buscemi). In order to be Sheeni's dream man, Nick crafts a "supplementary persona," Francois Dillinger (also Cera) - a chain-smoking, mustachioed arsonist. Oh yeah, and Fred Willard shows up a few times as Nick's uber-liberal neighbor Mr. Ferguson, who's more often than not eating those kinds of mushrooms.

First, the bad news. Zach Galifianakis isn't even in this movie. Sure, he has screen time, but his trademark stage presence is nowhere to be found; he plays a much more subdued, muted version of himself for the twenty minutes he's in the movie. That's right; it's sort of a spoiler, but the-man-who-would-be-Alan disappears from the film before we've had a chance to get to know his character. It's sort of a letdown, but it's a problem that plagues the rest of the film, too; Buscemi is almost a non-presence in the film, Justin Long peeks his head in for a bit of overplayed stoner humor, and the only thing genuinely funny about Willard's near-cameo is that Fred Willard is on the screen - otherwise, it's a part that could have been played by anyone capable of lying face-down on shag carpet. I haven't even mentioned Ray Liotta, who's also here. Liotta plays another cop, this one a potential paramour for Jean Smart's character, yet my problem here is the same one I had in Observe and Report - namely, that Liotta seems to be slumming. He's obviously talented and does a good job with what he has, but between this and a bit part on Hannah Montana, I'm close to putting Liotta on the "could have been" pile.

The film belongs almost entirely to the two Ceras, who are more than capable of supporting a movie on their own weight (it's just that I hate to see people like Buscemi, Liotta, and Willard reduced to being extras, when they're capable of so much more). Though Cera's definitive role for me will always be Superbad (George Michael on Arrested Development garners a close second), he does a very good job here, mumbling his way through the more awkward parts but doing it all with a sincerity that almost makes you forget this is but a variation on the same character he's been playing his whole career. His turn as Francois Dillinger is the more inspired of the two roles, since Dillinger is cool and confident (inspired, the film implies, by the iconic Jean-Paul Belmondo in Godard's Breathless), and it demonstrates there's a little room for growth in Cera's resume. Indeed, Dillinger provides the most laughs in the film, both because it's slightly incongruous for Cera to be speaking lines like "Thanks for breakfast" before overturning his cereal bowl and spitting on the carpet and because Dillinger is so cool about it that he himself seems almost a non sequitur in the movie.

So Dillinger is the star, and his role alone is worth the price of admission, but there are serious problems with the film's own identity. I referred to Sheeni as a "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" with my tongue firmly in cheek and a note of disdain because I'm growing tired of this stock character that's overstayed her welcome. Perhaps, then, that is the best thing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind did for me - put nails in the coffin of the MPDG by exposing her as a fallacy. Early in Youth in Revolt, Nick tells us that the difference between real life and movies is that "In the movies the good guy gets the girl. In real life it's usually the prick." Fair enough; one might expect the movie to go the route of (500) Days of Summer, deconstructing the conventional plot threads while grounding the film in a sense of realism. And it seems to do that for a while; Nick remains obliviously in love with Sheeni while she seems to be willing to dismiss him as a "summer fling," but somewhere near the halfway mark the film becomes the same old story we've seen a million times before - boy overcomes obstacles to be with girl happily ever after. It's frustratingly inconsistent, both because of what the movie has already told us (these endings don't happen) and because of what the movie has already showed us (Sheeni is unwilling to leave her boyfriend Trent for Nick). I'm not averse to changing gears mid-stream, but here it seems purposeless, forced, and implausible. (See Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist for a way to do this shift correctly).

Youth in Revolt, then, is a little like a chocolate chip cookie. When you look at it on the shelf, it looks like exactly what you've been craving. As you're indulging in it, it's delicious. As you're almost done with it, you start to become disappointed. Once it's gone, it doesn't wash so well because you realize it's insubstantial - almost exactly like all the other cookies you've had. But it tasted good doing down, so perhaps that's all that matters.
Not for the kiddies, Youth in Revolt snagged an R rating "for sexual content, language and drug use." Frank sexual dialogue and implications and F-bombs fly freely, and a few scenes revolve around psychotropic mushrooms and marijuana.