REVIEW: ‘Youth in Revolt’

Oh, Michael Cera. You had me on your side for so long. Even though I don’t consider you that great of an actor (you do tend to play some variation of yourself), the roles you play are always pretty sweet. However, Nick Twisp… not so much.

Nick Twisp is the main character of “Youth in Revolt,” which is based on the novel of the same name by C.D. Payne. He is an anxious 16-year-old hipster who really enjoys films, books, music, and vocabulary that most people don’t even know exist. He lives with his mother (Jean Smart) and her sleezeball boyfriend (Zach Galifianakis). After the boyfriend screws over a very intimidating trio of Navy Sailors, the “family” decides to go on vacation. They go to a trailer park on a lake, and this trailer park on a lake is where Nick Twisp meets the girl of his dreams, Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday).

Sheeni is the female version of Nick, just a bit more adventurous. To win her over, Nick must find a way to move to the trailer park and be a bad ass. He hatches a scheme to move in with his father (Steve Buscemi), who has recently moved to the trailer park. To do so he must get his mother and her new boyfriend (Ray Liotta) to kick him out. This is where his bad ass, mustachioed, cigarette-smoking alter ego François comes into play.

My main problem with this movie is that the younger characters all speak like writers, while the older characters seem to be much less mature and close-minded. I can’t stand when high school aged characters speak like they’re writing their dissertation. I mentioned at the beginning of my review that Cera disappointed me with this one, but he didn’t disappoint me near as much as Galifianakis. I can’t quite put my finger on it with Zach, perhaps it was the script, perhaps it was his acting, perhaps it was both. The plot didn’t do it for me.

Fred Willard’s acting did, however. He was a shining star in this movie. Every scene he was in was hysterical. The opening credits were also well done. They’re animated and much different than the rest of the film.

Overall, I think that they could have gone much darker with Nick Twisp’s character. I mean, he created an alter-ego to help him get a girl to fall in love with him. However, I think the writing went for faux-intellectual happy ending instead. Some people won’t get it. Others will, and that’ll be the problem. They’ll discover that there isn’t much depth to it. I was expecting so much more from this film, and I feel like I was cheated. The trailer is so good. The cast is fantastic. The movie just isn’t. Rent on it DVD. Even better, Netflix it.