Be bad with me, Mr. Cera

The kids are better than alright. In fact, the latest prototype for a sixteen-year-old boy is fiercely intellectual. He is quick-witted, culturally advanced, and has an overdeveloped sense of self. This is, apparently, the   Youth In Revolt.

Every revolution needs a leader, or so the film poster reads. The army of miniature misfits that has taken over North American silver screens as of late is most certainly led by   Mr. Michael Cera. The 21-year-old first made awkward adorable as George-Michael Bluth on Arrested Development, before briefly becoming (super)bad, impregnating an anti-teen queen, and writing an infinite playlist. Cera plays up his underdog attitude, but always ends up coming off cool, in a very everything-underrated-is-hip way. Move over Shia Labeouf, this is the man of the millennial moment.

Permanently pubescent, this fall Cera will star as another bright eyed, sex-crazed sixteen-year-old when he fills the role of Nick Twisp in Youth In Revolt. An un-finished cut of the film, which will be released on October 30, 2009, was shown last night at the Royal. The film is standard Cera fare: heartwarming, charming, and a little druggy. An adaptation of a   C.D. Payne novel, Youth In Revolt is the story of Twisp trying by any means necessary to loose his virginity to the intellectually over-stimulating girl of his dreams.

It’s another reference heavy Diablo Codified screenplay, giving nods to the  French youth movement from which the novel got its name. Each scene is filled with pieces of pop culture and the dialogue delivers an eating analysis each plot development as it unfolds. Basically, we left the theatre feeling like we were once the stupidest teenagers, ever.

But that feeling was soon drowned in bottles of wine at the Lakeview diner on Dundas, where the waitress promptly informed us she’d recently served Cera, who has been in-and-out of town filming  Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. It turns out he’s very, very short, which made me feel a bit better. After dinner and a bottle-for-one I ended up falling asleep on a couch and waking up to a note scribbled onto a napkin. 

For one moment I thought to myself: teens in their twenties can revolt, too. Right?

No, too tired. Maybe tomorrow.