Youth in Revolt
Youth in Revolt is the first outing of the new decade for Canada’s affable Michael Cera. Within the past 10 years he’s established himself as Hollywood’s go to guy for the nebbish, virginal but erudite teen and here we go again – sort of. He plays Nick Twisp the 16 year old son of Estelle (a trailer trashy hot Jean Smart) and George Twisp (Steve Buscemi). Nick can’t stay with his father and his new trophy wife Lacey (Ari Graynor) because Estelle lives off of child support and thus needs to have custody of the child. Since their break-up Estelle has hooked up with a litany of losers the latest being Jerry (Zach Galifianakis) who has to take it on the lam for selling junk cars to the US Navy. Nick has no objections since he feels he’ll die a virgin in Oakland and figures a trailer park upstate won’t be much worse. It’s actually a lot better since Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday) also lives just a few pads down in an upscale two level mobile home with her religious mother and father (Mary Kay Place and M. Emmet Walsh). Sheeni turns out to have pretty eclectic tastes. To Nicks delight she likes Sinatra and she likes Nick. Too bad she has a hunky boyfriend although she does hint that she could be swayed by a French bad boy. That’s all the encouragement Nick needs to clone himself into the moustachioed, chain smoking n’er do well alter ego he calls Francois Dillinger. To his usually uncomfortable surprise when Francois’ delinquent persona takes over good things start to happen for Nick – sort of. This is a nice recovery from Cera’s 2009 Year One as Youth In Revolt will have audiences in stitches. Like last years disappointing Paper Heart, the comedy here is augmented by cute animation but unlike Paper Heart the comedy here is actually funny. Very funny.