Youth in Revolt (2010, Arteta)

The two words with which I can best describe Youth in Revolt are "likable" and "modest," which also seems to be an apt summary of Michael Cera's entire career. Here he's hit paydirt with another film adaptation of a novel beloved by the teenagers of today, the first being the recent Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist. These sorts of projects seem ideally suited to the introverted and beguiled Cera, who has a certain amount of Hollywood savvy in spite of himself.

Youth is directed by Miguel Arteta, who started his directing career with the low-budget indie Star Maps, went on to the Mike White-scripted Chuck & Buck, and finally the Jennifer Aniston picture The Good Girl, directing episodes of Freaks & Geeks, Six Feet Under, and The Office along the way; all of which is to say that Arteta has the kind of low-budget background and a facility with actors that serves him well here. The picture is loaded with capable actors, from the now-hot Zach Galifianikis, the decades-reliable Fred Willard, and industry vets like Jean Smart, Ray Liotta, and Steve Buscemi. Arteta manages to keep a lot of plates spinning while navigating the forever-rotating cast of characters and keeping them competently sharing the same general universe. But the picture has the meandering feel of a series of vignettes; some of them work better than others, most of them are at least functional, but none of them really pop.

Cera's greatest gifts as an actor are simplicity, honesty, modesty, and self-doubt. He's easy to like, to identify with, and to root for. Yet there's a passivity inherent in his persona as well. This can play quite successfully given the world of the film around him, probably as a result of his simple emotional truth and sincerity; and Cera's made a lot of very smart choices in the films he's chosen to do so far that capitalizes on all of this. Yet, he's only playing a few notes, and as well as he may play them, there's quite a bit of repetitiveness in this narrow field of play.

To win the girl of his dreams in Youth in Revolt, Cera's Nick Twisp realizes he's a nebbish victim in over his head, and in a semi-psychotic break creates the persona of Francois Dillinger to appeal to French-obsessed ingenue Sheeni Saunders. Francois sports a little wispy facial hair, smokes cigarettes, and affects some aloof disdain for authority. Yet for all of Twisp's wide-eyed shock and befuddlement, the alter ego is really never more than Twisp himself with a backbone. Cera underplays the Francois character in almost exactly the same way he underplays every role. So many opportunities with the character are lost, not the least of which, and the most obvious, is a thick French accent. In trying to seduce someone as stereotypically French-fetishizing as Sheeni Saunders, that accent is without a doubt the first place Nick Twisp would go. Yet it's conspicuously absent.

This is only one small observation, yet indicative of the failings of Youth in Revolt as a whole, as well as of Michael Cera's current career trajectory. Both manage to modestly get the job done in an understated, unassuming, and often charming way. Yet there's so much unmined potential that any kind of success can only be minor, and far from wholly fulfilling.

6/10