Youth in Revolt (2009)
Directed by Miguel Arteta
As a fan of Albert Camus and Jean-Luc Godard, teenage Nick Twisp is definitely out of his element when his mother and her boyfriend move the family to a trailer park. When a pretty neighbor named Sheeni plays records by French crooners, it's love at first sight for frustrated and inexperienced Nick. Learning that she is dating someone, Nick launches a hilarious quest to find his way into Sheeni's heart -- and bed.
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What critics compared Youth in Revolt to
Those unfamiliar with the Dostoevsky might be reminded of the more recent Youth in Revolt, in which sometime Eisenberg doppelganger Michael Cera plays a shy young man who invents a troublemaking alter ego in order to attract the girl of his dreams.
We can’t help but wonder if Eisenberg, for a while in competition with the younger Michael Cera for roles as the chic-geek, signed on to chase that actor’s ignored success in 2009’s Youth in Revolt.
Eisenberg's excellent as his own bad-news double in The Double, playing a more unsettling doppelgänger than Cera managed in Youth in Revolt, which involved a tricked-up mustache and too-cute French name.
Cera’s ongoing campaign to muss up his geeky persona began a few years ago with Youth in Revolt (2009), in which he played both a nerd and his suave alter ego: exactly what Eisenberg is called on to do here.
But (for its first half anyway) “Me and Earl” also reminded me of some of my favorite, dryly whimsical Sundance movies like “Submarine” (2011) and “Youth in Revolt” (2010).
Like the classic Hollywood dumb blonde who laughs all the way to the bank – from Judy Holliday to Goldie Hawn to Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde – Cera knows how to sell his awkward naïf to a fare-thee-well.
…but their inevitable union gives the actor some of his best material since 2010’s Youth in Revolt.
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The result is a deliciously sardonic yet heartfelt film that emerges from a sea of adolescent angst with as much charm as such recent praiseworthy fare as Terry Zwigoff's Ghost Worldand Miguel Arteta's Youth in Revolt.