| Youth In Revolt |
Rating: Really liked it
Director: Miguel Arteta
Release Year: 2010
Genre: Comedy
Starring: Michael Cera & Portia Doubleday
I caught a screening of Youth in Revolt earlier this week and was pleasantly surprised by the extent to which the film goes out of its way to appeal to cinematically literate viewers. For example, early in the movie we see Michael Cera renting a Criterion DVD from a local video store... and getting mocked for doing so by a high school jock and his girlfriend (Cera gets a small measure of passive-aggressive revenge by slipping in a Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous joke at the girlfriend's expense).
Later, while hiding out in a trailer park with his mother and her new boyfriend (played hilariously by Jean Smart and Zach Galifianakis, respectively), Cera meets (and quickly falls in love with) Portia Doubleday. When Cera goes into Doubleday's bedroom for the first time, he finds that she's the type of girl who obsessively hangs pictures of Jean-Paul Belmondo on her wall (an obsession I can get behind). The two then engage in a brief bout of cinematic one-upmanship that Doubleday wins by correctly identifying the director of Cera's professed favorite film, Tokyo Story.
A Match Made In Awkward Cinematic Heaven
From there the movie spins into a not-quite-standard attempt to bring Cera and Doubleday together. For reasons that only make sense in the context of the movie - Cera must commit sufficiently heinous acts to get his mother to kick him out of her house so that he can rejoin Doubleday in the trailer park.
But because he's such as straight-and-narrow kid, Cera has to create a supplemental personality named Francois Dillinger to conduct his bad acts. The great thing is that - with the exception of some accidental property destruction - the rebellious acts that "Francois" commits are hilariously (and intentionally) tame. The audience I was with roared when "Francois" defied his mother and her post-Galifianakis boyfriend (Ray Liotta) by flipping over a mostly empty cereal bowl on his way out the door.
I was discussing Cera's tame rebellion with a friend who hasn't yet seen the film, and he noted "it sounds like something George-Michael Bluth would do if he were upset." And I've got to admit... that's exactly what Cera's alter-ego actions here feel like.
Cera continues to deliver with his strange blend of complete self-confidence (watch his belated response to the jock who mocks his Criterion rental) and utter inability to fully vocalize it. Supporting Cera are several hilarious character actors, including the already mentioned Jean Smart, Zach Galifianakis, and Ray Liotta, as well as Erik Knudsen (Cera's über-depressed best friend), Adhir Kalyan (an Indian classmate who completely steals all of the scenes that he shares with Cera), and Fred Willard (as a bleeding-heart do-nothing).
Toss in a few Savage Steve Holland-esque animated sequences and the teen-angsty in-your-own-head self-aggrandizing vibe of Catcher In The Rye, and you've got the makings of a solid romantic comedy.
Youth in Revolt is in theaters starting today. |
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Author: Micah
Review Date: 01.08.10
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KatieWynner says...
Glad you liked the film. I'm excited to see where this adaption takes me, though I'm still very worried. I loved the books so much, and I just can't handle more disappointment...we shall see. |
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