Weird enough to be cool.. Youth in Revolt

Youth in Revolt: where 16 year old kids have an annoying knowledge of auteur directors, early 20th century psychoanalysis and speak entirely in lousy post-modern witticisms. Where bizarre clashes with realism to result in an odd film which makes Napoleon Dynamite seem as earthbound as an episode of EastEnders.

Waning in the collective shadow of alpha-males everywhere, Nick Twisp creates alter-ego Francois Dillinger to live up to the expectaions of Sheeni Saunders, a cock-teasing francophile who loves all things Parisienne and Jean-Luc Goddard. Dillinger has the swagger of Michel Poiccard, smokes like a Frenchman and has daring and the requisite testosterone levels to get Twisp what comes so freely to everyone else in this film: sex.

Michael Cera plays the roles of both Twisp and Dillinger and he continues to live up to the comic promise displayed as a youth in the masterfully crafted story-arc sitcom Arrested Development. Although I would have preferred for Tobais Funke to have made a better go of it, Cera is doing well and here he recovers from the painfully awful Paper Heart (not that anyone watched it) with a skilled performance which requires depth you wouldn't know was there, so believable his consistently monotone onscreen persona.

As a side note, the art of having the same actor play two different characters on the same screen has long since reached it's zenith. I watched thinking about how, despite a great turn from Cera to play both Twisp and Francois Dillinger, it's not a selling point of the film nor did anyone really care. If Jeremy Irons playing twins in Dead Ringers registered a ten on the careometer back in '88 then this is a stone cold zero.

Cera, 22, is playing the 16-year-old protagonist. Twisp's age is only mentioned at the end of the film in what is intended to be a Clockwork Orange-like age-reveal shock twist. The difference in age between actor and character compliments the freakishly advanced maturity of the source characters, and adds to the generally weird and wonky experience.

It could be said Youth in Revolt follows on from the 'cool'-com model built up by the Apatow / Rogen collective. The dialogue is Apatow-esque and well-delivered and despite the fact that it would probably make more sense as an discussion board catfight, it's actually really funny.

Somehow most of the laughs are generated from a type of dialogue typical of the 'cool-nerd' persona which has flooded the peripherals of popular culture for the past 2 to 3 years. When watching, lesser humans may be left in a trail of laughter-dust from the spinning tyres of their more clever, knowledgeable and 'cool' contemporaries, I'd imagine. This ain't a slapstick comedy, and if you are expecting the hijinx found in the average Seth Rogen title you won't find much of it here.

Youth in Revolt reads like the fictional life of a sexually frustrated nerd, which is what the novel of that this film is based on must be. It's only the kind of life that Nick Twisp lives which forces one to become an artfag who would ever be interested in writing or directing anything like this. However, this is a well directed and truly unique film, though far from excellent. The script is broken up by two set pieces where the characters are travelling by car, director Miguel Arteta chooses to use cardboard cut out effects and puppets to tack on some Grondry-like scenes, presumably to further enhance the alt-appeal of this geek-com.

The script, in fact, appears to be the product of a week-long narcotics binge. And we aren't without drug scenes, which are becoming more obligatory with every sub-mainstream comedy. Marijuana and mushrooms are on the menu here.


Good film, but it won't be enjoying any commercial success. And that is a good thing, success for this style of comedy would not mean more films like Youth in Revolt, but more films like Juno, and I prefer my comedies to be funny.

This story is so strange it might as well take place in a parallel universe, but you still get the universal tale of lads in their mid teens not knowing what to do to get laid. Style-wise Youth in Revolt is the lovechild of Frederico Fellini and Judd Apatow.. born with too many chromosomes.