Just how many times can Michael Cera play this part? Youth in Revolt finds the former Arrested Development star once again playing an awkward, timid, virginal teen—this time Nick Twisp, a sexually frustrated 16-year-old whose life is turned upside down when he meets the love of his life, Sheeni Saunders (Doubleday), while on vacation with his mother and her boyfriend. The previously milquetoast Nick engages in all sorts of deviant and increasingly illegal behavior in order to be with Sheeni, going so far as to create a suave, amoral alter ego named Francois (Cera with a mustache and very tight pants) to help motivate himself to be bad.

The Details

Youth in Revolt

Michael Cera, Portia Doubleday, Jean Smart, Steve Buscemi.

Directed by Miguel Arteta.

Rated R.

Opens Friday.

Beyond the Weekly

Youth in Revolt

IMDb: Youth in Revolt

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Mostly it’s just Cera being Cera, although he does get to stretch a bit as Francois (even if the whole joke is that Nick is ill-suited to being suave and amoral, and the device kind of peters out). And of course the reason Cera gets cast in these parts so often is that he’s good at them, and he brings an empathetic vulnerability to Nick that makes it easier to go along for the ride when Nick starts doing ethically questionable things in the name of love. The supporting characters, including Sheeni herself, don’t get fleshed out much, as Nick bounces from his mother’s house to his father’s and from one best friend/enabler to another, but the likes of Steve Buscemi, Jean Smart, Fred Willard, Ray Liotta and Zach Galifianakis make the most of their relatively small roles. And Doubleday, even when she’s only onscreen for moments at a time as circumstances keep Nick and Sheeni apart, makes a convincing case for Sheeni as the girl for whom a guy would do anything.

The story (based on a novel by C.D. Payne) could easily have descended into juvenile crassness and gross-out humor, but director Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl) keeps things grounded, and there’s a genial throwback feel to his style that recalls scrappy sex comedies of the 1980s (if the Cera-starring Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist was a John Hughes update, Revolt is more Savage Steve Holland, right down to the animated sequences). Payne’s novel was once in development as a series for MTV, and the movie does feel a little episodic and unfocused, but in the end that’s part of its low-key charm.