I had no intention of ever seeing it but I was lucky to attend an advance screening of Youth in Revolt on Tuesday night and was agreeably surprised by it. The movie, directed by Miguel Arteta, is a teen comedy featuring a faux-clever and snappy dialogue reminiscent of Juno. The precocious Nick Twisp (Michael Cera) is a sex-obsessed 16-yr old virgin who is determined to lose his virginity as soon as possible. While on vacation at a crummy trailer park with his mother (Jean Smart) and her useless boyfriend (Zach Galifianakis), Nick meets the free-spirited Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday)  and immediately falls in love with her. Sheeni has a boyfriend but entertains the thought of a summer fling while Nick is desperate to make the relationship a long-lasting one. Nick comes up with a bad-boy alter-ego of himself, Francois Dillinger (Sheeni loves anything French), who will help him insure that Sheeni will forever be his. Absurd situations and hilarity ensues.

Youth in Revolt is relatively funny thanks in large part to the good-natured Michael Cera who displays some quick-tongued comic abilities. From what I gather, the screenplay was adapted from C.D Payne’s three novels “Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp,” and the subsequent “Revolting Youth: The Further Journals of Nick Twisp,” and “Young and Revolting: The Continental Journals of Nick Twisp.” Clocking in at only 90 minutes, I don’t need to read the novels to realize that the movie probably merely skims through the original material. The movie suffers from an uneven tone and pacing likely from trying to compact those three novels into 90 minutes. The dialogue is clever and hilarious but this doesn’t mean it has depth or thoughtfulness behind it. The photography also seems a little too bland and gray to my liking. I realize this is to contrast Nick and Sheeni from their bleak surroundings but heck, if I wanted to see bleak, I would only need to go outside in the Minnesota winter. This is supposed to be a comedy after all!

Look up the definition of “typecast” in the dictionary and you will find a picture of Michael Cera. He is about to turn 22 but he still plays his perennial awkward but likable teen loser very effectively and carries this movie on his back. The only problem is that he does not give us anything new. Him having to play two versions of the same character is only a reminder of his apparent lack of acting range although it is apparent Cera had great fun playing the bad version of himself. Portia Doubleday is sassy but gives a somewhat muted performance in a surprisingly multi-layered role. The solid supporting cast includes plenty of familiar faces such as Ray Liotta (What’s up with the eye liners?), Steve Buscemi and the hilarious Fred Willard among others.

A relatively funny albeit unmemorable comedy. The crop of movies coming out the next two months doesn’t look very appetizing so I would not hesitate to see this one.

B

Notes: R-Rated for sexual content, language and drug use, 90 minutes. Youth in Revolt will be released on Friday, January 8.

Trailer: