Youth in Revolt review!
Youth in Revolt stars Michael Cera as Nick Twisp, an awkward teenager (no way!?!?! Michael Cera playing an awkward teen?!?!?!) with trailer trash parents who are separated and each seeing other people. When Twisp meets Sheeni Saunders, he thinks he has found someone with whom he would love to lose his virginity. In order to make this happen, he invents an imaginary alter ego, a French version of himself known as Francois Dillinger, that can say and do all the things he can’t. Hijinx ensue.
The movie is based on a book, and in its favour, I liked the cynical and sardonic tone that is established, something you don’t see done well or often in a so-called teen sex romp. Rather than being overstuffed with lame sitcom jokes or gross out scenes, it takes a more low key and intelligent approach to the humour if not some of the hijinx.
However, Youth in Revolt doesn’t quite hit the mark. It’s only an hour and a half (which I like), but it seemed like its 4 hours long. It meanders along, with some scenes being really good and central to the plot and others that seem like they are just dropped in. In fact, there are characters and situations that appear for no reason other than for the sake of a gag, to the point of being large plot holes. Fred Willard appears as a next door neighbor that lives near his mother (his father lives far away). When Nick is trapped in a bad situation one night, he calls Willard’s character to pick him up. Willard’s character drives him home and spends the night on his father’s couch, so he won’t have to drive all the way back to his own home. Fair enough, I’m still with them at this point. However, a few scenes later, Willard appears to still be living on Mr. Twisp’s couch, with no explanation of why he has seemingly abandoned his home, other than because the filmmakers wanted him in a couple of extra scenes. There’s also a scene where someone puts a full car into a living room, which would be a great obstacle for a character to contend with. However, after making a big deal about how crazy it is and the trouble they’ll have to go through to get it out --- they just never mention it again. Sloppy, sloppy filmmaking. I’m betting the book fleshes this stuff out.
Michael Cera actually has a good role here though --- of course, he plays his usual nebbish teen self. But when he is Francois, we get to see a side of his acting that we’ve rarely glimpsed before. Francois is a confident, well-dressed trouble maker and Cera does an excellent job of playing this part. The only problem is; Francois should have been a major character and ends up being pretty underused. That’s not to say that I don’t mind the subtly of Francois, because it would be some kind of lame buddy comedy if the movie was just about the two of them and their adventures. But the movie would have benefited from making Francois more of a character and losing some of the gags of Fred Willard appearing out of nowhere to do mushrooms.
All in all, the movie is ok. It did have some funny moments and I laughed out loud more than I would in a lot of lame comedies. I was even able to go with the film when it got into ridiculous antics, but ultimately, on the whole, it just didn’t have thrust. I enjoyed some of it, but I won’t remember which parts or why in a week. Save it for home video if you even need to bother.
2 and a HALF Dorks out of 5 on the Geek-o-Meter.
