Brightest Young Things

If you go to see YIR, you are attracted by one, or all, of a few things:

Michael Cera:

The adorned Prince of contempo-indie-pop culture, Mr Cera is every twee girl's love. It's been written about, but to re-state it: he is nice, and smart, and just as "not ready" to bone as you are. But by the end of whatever film he's in, you're both ready, and you bone. You bone real har-- well, you bone gently, with impish thrust. If your stomach can still handle even the sight of this huge extra serving of M.C, than loosen your checkered belt, because this movie looked like it was gonna pile the cutesy, verbose shlock onto your plate with extra shmaltz.

Michael Cera's alter ego Francois Dillinger:

So, if you like Michael Cera, but have a sense that he's really a tiger inside, then GET READY, here comes a dirty talking, ciggarrette smoking split personality(?) that reveals just how Jersey Shore little "george michael" really is. This bit alone is enough to lure you into the meta-fantasy of this film.

Zack Galifianakis:

The comedian whose presence in huge movies is only appreciated, and never decried. His shtick has resisted packaging and filtration, remaining relatively pure and organic. It seems that he affects films more than they affect him. People didn't really say "finger bang" in movies before Z.G.

The movie begins with an off camera Cera grunting (I mean...simpering) in his little girl voice, and a bed is shaking. Guess who's masturbating? Voice over kicks in and we see a pretty funny glimpse at his life: getting picked on, getting blown off by girls, getting totally shat on by his "mother's consort," Zack Galifianakis. He articulates like David Sedaris and contemplates like Dave Eggers; his narrative is rife with existential dilemma, and an obsession with his looming virginity. Even his decidedly lame name "Nick Twisp" plagues him like an everlasting brand of shame.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!

But Galifianakis dies, and dies early. His character takes us as far as the budding romance, and then collects his check, and heads home.

Twisp meets, intellectually connects, and makes out with Sheeni Saunders and is then abruptly separated from this love interest by parental forces in the first twenty minutes of the movie. The rest of the film is dedicated to a newly inspired Twisp trying reunite with the young beauty via a funny plan to get kicked out of his mother's house and move in with his estranged father (a sleep walking Steve Buscemi) who lives near Sheeni's town. He will do all of this by employing the ALTER EGO WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR: Francois Dillinger.

I was really excited about this. I thought it was a can't-miss role. The notion of Michael Cera playing a classically cool dude, straight out of Godard's world, is funny in premise alone. It even delivers. His sudden appearances, or barges rather, into a frame elicit an earnest, hearty laugh. His moustache is a detail of perfect comedy, and even his outfit is cleverly chosen; almost a vintage James Spader accented by Jean Pierre Léaud: blue crepe shirt tucked into white pants, with white dock shoes, and said moustache.

But Francois isn't really involved with nearly half as much plot as he could be. He broods, and smokes cigs, and mocks Cera. But where one expects hijinks like the final twenty minutes of Home Alone, what you get are hijinks like the goofy scene in every baseball movie where the team plays wiffle ball and gets back to basics. He is simply underused, and this is bound to leave people unsatisfied. There are half hour gaps in which he doesn't even appear. These gaps are supplemented, however, by supporting-actor-of-cosmically-hilarious proportions Justin Long who plays Sheeni's older brother. Speaking in dead-pan nihlistic 'isms, the magic-mushroom-dosing brother drugs nearly everyone at some point in the story. Honorable mention goes to Fred Willard, the neighboor who harbors illegal immigrants and spends much of the film half nude.

So the film carries on, and Twisp finds himself on the run from the cops when the hijinks (some illegal hijinks) catch up with him. Then the whole thing gets a little too absurd for even the most tolerant of us-- all the adults are on mushrooms, and Twisp is in disguise as a Christian girl named Carlotta.

The film is so talky, and purposefully highfalutin that nobody short of a stenographer would even remember half of the lines that made us laugh. Though the dialogue is slick, literary, and taut-- it is equally pompous (even if self-aware), canny, and posed. The loose, improvisational magic of previous Cera projects, like Arrested Development or Superbad, is lost entirely in this intricate web of references and impossibly long-winded manner of speaking about even the simplest things.

So don't expect to come away with as many gems as Superbad gave to you, you'll be hard pressed to recall many quotables at all. This may be the departure Cera thought he was making in this film, but what may have worked in the novel version (probably fleshed out over hundreds of pages) feels unnatural and ham-handed.

I did remember one such riff, and it was a Francois line to a reluctant Sheeni, in bed:

"I'd like to wrap those legs around my head and wear you like the crown you are."

Though that may be the dirty talk of the year (save Duck Phillips dirty talk to Peggy in Mad Men), it was the only thing I could remember being said in the entire film. I may also be a pervo.

So here we are loving the supporting cast (including Cera's alternative role as Dillinger) much more than our leading man because we've seen the Michael Cera routine before, and the fireworks we came out for were cut short to make time for more limp-wristed, shy-guy, kabooki theater.  Cera shouldn't settle for the arresting of his development as an actor, because he really is a gifted comedian. He should be planning for the future. Remember when Pauly Shore was too old to be the weasel? Cute has an expiration date mon frere, and what are you like 21?