Review: Youth in Revolt

Michael Cera has carved out a niche for himself in films such as Juno, Superbad and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist as the slightly dorky guy who always wins the girl round with his naive charm. Although he mis-stepped last year with the dire Year One he returns in a film in which he plays the same character once again. But this film has one particular difference in that he has very few laugh-out-loud lines and also that he has no headline support. Before he always had a Jonah Hill, an Ellen Page or a Kat Dennings to rely on but here he's all on his own. For the most part the humour is very subtle as Cera veers between central character Nick Twisp and alter ego Francois Dillinger in order to get the girl of his dreams. The Dillinger character is inspired and you can see that Cera greatly enjoys playing someone with a little more backbone and is able to seduce a girl with a couple of dirty lines.

While Cera has the lion's share of screentime there are some decent supporting turns notably from Jean Smart (Lana in Frasier, Martha Logan in 24) as Nick's alcholic and detatched mother and The Hangover's Zack Galifianakis and Ray Liotta as her loser and copper lovers respectively. The always reliable Fred Willard pops up from time to time as he strips off and does mushrooms while Steve Buscemi is rather uninspiring as Nick's father. The other characters are rather one dimensional - Justin Long as the stoner brother, the Indian best friend, the dickhead ex-boyfriend and the horny schoolgirl are all incidental while even Portia Doubleday's love-interest is a bit weak and at times you wonder why Twisp bothers.

Director Miguel Arterta always brings something new to the genre he works in as we previously saw in The Good Girl and Chuck and Buck. Here the visual style changes several time and different animated styles are used especially in scenes involving journeys. When this first happens it seems distracting and then interesting but by the end it feels a little repetive. While Youth in Revolt has an original feel with some old school themes there's something about it which doesn't put it up there with Superbad or Juno. Part of that may be the unsatisfying conclusion or the fact that there isn't enough heart to make us connect to all of these characters. Still better than most of this year's comedies thusfar.