Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
Sometimes when you jam pack a movie full of well-known and long-reliable character actors, you get a big sloppy mess, and sometimes you get a film that's kind of special. So many friends of mine are mildly obsessed with the C.D. Payne novel YOUTH IN REVOLT, and their expectations are perhaps a bit too high for a successful adaptation by screenwriter Miguel Gustin Nash and director Miguel Arteta (CHUCK AND BUCK, THE GOOD GIRL, as well as episodes of "Freaks and Geeks," "Six Feet Under," and "The Office"). The good news is that the movie is exceedingly funny thanks to its great cast and a slightly different take on the coming-of-age film of a classic film nerd in the guise of Nick Twisp (Michael Cera).
If there is such a thing as the "Michael Cera type," I haven't grown weary of it yet. He delivers his funniest lines under his breath, almost daring us to lean in and listen quite closely to every sardonic remark. But when the charmingly dorky Nick can't quite pull himself together enough to get the serious attention of the woman of his dreams, Sheeni Saunders (newcomer Portia Doubleday), he creates an alter ego named Francois, a sociopath whose destructive leanings get Nick in a shitload of trouble, but also get him a lot closer to his relationship goals than he's ever dreamed possible. Nick first meets Sheeni in a trailer park where he, his mother (the cougarific Jean Smart) and her boyfriend (Zach Galifianakis) are hiding out for a time.
After immediately falling for Sheeni, Nick (or more precisely Francois) arranges for a bit of destruction that lands him living with his father (Steve Buscemi), who just happens to reside very close to where Sheeni and her very religious parents (Mary Kay Place and M. Emmet Walsh) live. What's fascinating about the character of Sheeni is that she is not portrayed like a typical pretty high school girl leading boys on to get what she wants. We suspect that she may be exactly that, but when we see her around her parents, we get a better sense of the kind of personal hell she's living everyday and how lying to them is her knee-jerk response to any question they have for her. It's her survival mechanism, and the more of this behind-the-curtain part of her that Nick sees, the more he falls in love with her and wants to help her escape. YOUTH IN REVOLT is undoubtedly a comedy, but in these more revealing moments, I was moved.
As the film progresses, we meet even more fantastic players, including mom's other boyfriend, a local cop played by the suitably insane Ray Liotta; a bleeding-heart-liberal neighbor (Fred Willard); Buscemi's girlfriend (the adorable Ari Graynor); Rooney Mara as a depressive classmate of Sheeni's; Justin Long as Sheeni's fully baked brother; and the colossally funny Adhir Kalyan ("Aliens In America"; FIRED UP!) as Nick's new best friend who drives him to Sheeni's private school where he hopes to convince her to run away with him.
But the film's real scene-stealer is Francois, with his John Waters mustache, ridiculous ascot, slicked-to-the-side hair, too-tight slacks, and delicately handled cigarette. Francois is a side to Michael Cera that we simply haven't seen before, and it's a beacon of hope that whatever he gives us in SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD will be extraordinary. There's no stammering, no averted gaze. He's a man so confident in his piggish nature the he knows without a doubt that women will find him repulsive and attractive at the same time. I know I did. He's the kind of guy that isn't afraid to pick a fight with Ray Liotta. For Francois and his cast of supporting thousands of funny folks, YOUTH IN REVOLT hits on the anger, desperation, emotional violence, and hilarity of those awkward teenage years. I can't tell you how it compares to the book, but I know how it stacks up to a lot of other films of its ilk, and it's far stronger than any of them.
-- Capone
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