Tara's Indie Pick Flicks

AugMon 2010 Filed in: Tara's Indie Pick Flicks

Youth in Revolt

Directed by: Vikram Jayanti
Starring: Michael Cera and Portia Doubleday
Now playing: Out now on DVD

Nick Twisp (Cera) is your typical pale, nerdy, painfully virginal teenage boy. Despite his taste for Frank Sinatra and foreign film, or perhaps because of it, he has no hope of ever getting a girlfriend. This becomes even more painfully obvious when his mom and her boyfriend relocate the family to a trailer park in Southern California. There he meets Sheeni Saunders (Doubleday), the French-film-loving daughter of religious fundamentalists. Nick quickly falls for Sheeni but realizes that unless he can shed his goody-two-shoes image, he has no hope of winning her heart. So he does what any normal, hot-blooded American boy would do. He develops an alter ego, the chain-smoking, tight-white-pants-wearing Francois Dillinger (also Cera). Through Francois, Nick becomes the bad boy of Sheeni’s dreams, stealing cars, defacing public property and breaking into Sheeni’s fancy French boarding school.

As far as romantic comedies go, Youth in Revolt is not a terrible movie. Michael Cera puts in a solid yet expected performance as the under-confident kid who finally finds some guts and gets the girl. The story is funny and clever and I enjoyed the many nods to French cinema that run throughout. My problem with Youth in Revolt is this: I could not for the life of me understand what was so compelling and fantastic about Sheeni Saunders that could inspire such mayhem. While she is physically beautiful, her personality is pretty vacant, manipulative and just plain unlikable. While it’s definitely entertaining, the premise of Youth in Revolt is too far flung, even for this die-hard romantic. If you’re looking for a fun, satisfying romantic comedy to sit in the A/C and watch, check out Adventureland.