Youth in Revolt

"Youth in Revolt," the Weinstein Company's latest effort that rolled into Springs-side theaters last week, is one of those movies that seems like an increasingly dire game of Jenga as it unfolds: The narrative always seems one or two moves away from collapsing off the reel and drowning the audience in diminishing returns.

Thankfully, by the arrival of the twee animation sequence that accompanies the closing credits, said collapse hasn't happened; but just barely.

Michael Cera stars as Nicholas Twisp, a nebbishy 16-year-old virgin who's as amorous as he is grandiloquent. Nick's relentless intellect and unwieldy verbal acumen alienate him from his divorced parents, portrayed by an under-utilized Steve Buscemi as George Twisp, and Jean Smart (who here essentially reprises her role from "Garden State") as Estelle Twisp, and their comically unfit rebound partners, a bubbly blonde in her mid-twenties and Zach Galifinakis, respectively.

Cera is a natural as the bookish protagonist; a loner by default whose unique mind goes unheralded by his incurious familiars. For example, an early b-plot scene features Twisp perusing through an Oakland area video store and revealing his pretentious fondness for Italian Neorealist cinema while he attempts to impress a visibly bored female patron, highlighting his pronounced isolation from the teenage girls whose elusiveness compounds their appeal.

Madcap hijinks involving Galifinakis' de facto step-father character – who relocates the entire family to a trailer park – propel the chaotic plot forth until Nick meets Sheeni Saunders, a comely neighbor with a penchant is for French New Wave and is the embodiment of Nick's instantly smitten adolescent dreams.

Portia Doubleday, the novice actress with a Bond-girlish name who co-stars as Sheeni, is readily believable as a romantic interest – an essential element to the film's further development. She and Cera have an unforced chemistry that anchors a definitively zany story and holds the audience in suspense.

Various obstacles come between Twisp and his erstwhile paramour, and the film concerns itself with his quest to return to his lady fair. The perpetually timid Nick invents a "supplementary persona" he calls Francois Dillinger, a chain-smoking, mustachioed, pure I.D. version of Nick Twisp (also portrayed by Cera) who emboldens him to pursue improbably perilous machinations to win Sheeni's heart. Cera is brilliant in these sequences, playing against type as Francois, who often scores some of the movie's biggest laughs.

The only problem with "Youth in Revolt," really, was that the narrative seemed too hurried in its execution. Director Miguel Arteta's realization of Gustin Nash's adaptation of the cult classic Nicholas Twisp book series has a host of hilarious secondary characters, whose story arcs get rounded off in favor of moving the plot forward.

Furthermore, the supporting cast is staffed by the likes of Fred Willard, Justin Long and Ray Liotta, all of whom excel during their albeit precious-little screen time.

Granted, any filmic adaptation of a 500-plus page novel is going to lose details and pacing in the translation, but I left "Youth in Revolt" feeling a little bit robbed, like I was told only two thirds of the story; and I hadn't even heard of the Nick Twisp series until shortly before I saw the movie.

Despite its minor shortcomings, however, "Youth in Revolt" is too clever and uniquely enjoyable for me not to recommend it to you, readers. Though the movie ultimately falls short of the promise it displays in its early scenes, at the end, it remains a standing Jenga tower of triumph, if still a little wobbly.