By Ben T. Levy  |  Send to Friend

In Miguel Arteta’s new adaptation of C.D. Payne’s multi-installment novel, Youth In Revolt, we get a hip little glimpse of exactly that. Michael Cera is miserable highschooler Nick Twisp (a brilliant character name that Dickens would have paid a few quid for). His deadbeat mom (Jean Smart), gallivants around with even lesser species, and for all she cares Nick might as well not even exist in the motor home with her and her dolt of a live in “consort” Jerry (a hilarious Zach Galifianakas). All is pretty bleak for young Twisp until he meets the also brilliantly-named Sheeni Saunders, played by newcomer Portia Doubleday. Sheeni is a beautiful young crumpet, but more importantly she shares Nick’s adoration of anything esoteric, obscure, or foreign. They sit together in bedrooms pontificating on the genius of Goddard, Truffaut, Sinatra, and Serge Gainsbourg. Their dialogue is funny and sharply written. While at the beach, Sheeni beseeches Nick to “apply” lotion to her “exposed areas.”

Sure enough, the two young Francophiles’ apparently mutual affection blossoms into an awkward teenage romance, but their stars are clearly crossed from the beginning. Nick and Sheeni are separated, and in order to get back to her Nick must get himself kicked out of his mom’s digs and be relocated to the house of his father, played straight by Steve Buscemi. In order to accomplish this, the ever meek and oh-so-mild Twisp (if the Nick that Cera played in Nick and Norah had a different last name you wouldn’t know it) creates an “supplementary persona” for himself: the chain-smoking, aviator-wearing Francois Dillinger.

Francois, with his pencil moustache, tapered white slacks, and duffle bags under his eyes, is everything that Nick isn’t. He’s cocksure, reckless, and determined, and he leads Nick on a path of destruction that is bad enough not just to get him kicked out but to make him a wanted man. Cera of course plays both of these characters, and he pulls it off pretty well. It’s not necessary to completely believe Francois as a real person because he’s not, so this was a clever way for Cera to transition away form the pretty spineless wallflower as with his standard casting.

When I spoke to Cera and Doubleday, my humble mission was to ascertain just how similar these actors are to the characters they play in Youth. How close is Cera to the “Michael Cera Character” that one other journalist in the room actually rather insultingly asked him about? Could any young girl possibly be as precocious and supercilious as Sheeni?

As it turns out, Cera is very much like the “Michael Cera Character.” He’s quietly funny, giving short answers and then delivering a joke in such a measured way it’s as if he scribbled it down in his brain before risking it. When asked about his a favorite song pick, he mentions “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” and then says “I listen to it every night, and I say ‘Yes.” When Doubleday, while discussing her upbringing, says that her dad was ‘Mr. Academia,” Cera interjects with “Oh, I didn’t realize he was your father.”
Both Cera and Doubleday admit they had little to rebel against as teenagers (Doubleday was “being a weirdo and doing assigned readings” and Cera was watching Ghostbusters) which makes sense. Everything they do in the film has an angsty melodrama that recalls the desperate romanticism of youth, but it’s the fact that it seems a bit forced that makes it truly funny. Doubleday does joke that she “roofied some boys,” however.

As for the harmless snobbery of the characters, Doubleday has a bit more of that. She, like Sheeni, is now obsessed with Jean-Paul Delmondo, and she’s currently listening to the To Kill a Mockingbird soundtrack. She says “it was difficult to be aloof and detached but also likeable," but she described herself so well that I needn't add a thing. Ultimately they are two nervous young actors, earnest and excited. When asked if there were any particular message that viewers should take from this film, Cera answered, simply “You’re better off just being yourself, for better or worse.”