Youth In Revolt

"Youth in Revolt" is a collection of half baked, yet interesting, ideas in search of a movie. Based on a well known cult novel, the film casts Michael Cera as a horny yet shy teenager who wants nothing more than to have sex, but has absolutely no idea how to go about it.

But he seems to meet his soulmate at a trailer park in young Portia Doubleday. She's just as literate and nerdy as he is, but she longs for someone with a little more of an edge. She wants the rebel who will simultaneously fulfill her fantasies of freedom, and help her rebel and form a clean break from her domineering fundamentalist parents.

To win her heart, Cera concocts a rebelious alter ego for himself that seems tailor made to win her heart.
Cera is such a poster boy for shy awkward nice guys that it's inherently a little amusing to watch him try to be bad. And his particular vision of a bad boy is a french white loafer wearing playboy with an inspector clouseu like moustache who smokes incessently and cares little for the inconsistent rules imposed by his divorced dysfunctional parents played by Jean Smart and Steve Buschemi.

But unfortunately the idea sounds a lot more fun on paper than it actually is up there on the screen. In the task of trying to condense the 400 page novel down to feature length, they've unfortunately lost the spirit in the shuffle. So subsequently scenes that should have built up to a fulfilling climax are left to kind live or die on their own in a vaccum. And they don't add up to much in the end. It's just a story that kind of meanders along jumping from one misguided exercise in revolt to another.


Youth In Revolt: C