Youth in Revolt might look like another run of the mill Michael Cera movie, but in actuality it is one of his best acted and broadest range shown yet in a surprisingly fun and irreverent farce about fighting for the one you love.
Nick Twisp is your average teenage boy, without a girl, enthralled with sex, and is rather awkward when put in a potential female encounter. Everyone is of course getting some around him as well, including his divorced parents, which only rubs salt in his wounds. So when he meets the girl of his dreams, Sheeni, he decides he will do anything to stay close to her as they are torn apart from both sides. This leads to Nick creating an alternate personality to do what Nick Twisp can’t, and his name is Francois Dillinger, and Dillinger is bad.
Dillinger is barely in the film, popping in and out of scenes, for a matter of seconds sometime, but he is endlessly hilarious and shows Cera’s range as an actor and gives one hope he can do more than what the studio heads want him to do right now. It isn’t a surprise that Cera can do this to his fans that have seen him fool around in behind the scenes stuff he has done, but he will catch a lot of people off guard. But this is a good thing and a step forward to Cera breaking out of his shell. Hopefully we get fresh Cera for Scott Pilgrim next year and more in the years to come, because if Francois is any indication of what he is capable we are in for a treat. [Read more...]