Youth in Revolt

Seen at: AMC Promendade in Westminster, late January

I had to chase this movie down in Westminster, after I let in leave Fort Collins early in the year. I saw it on a trip to my visit my sister's family.

This was not the movie I expected it to be, but this is an earlier effort by Michael Cera, that is just now getting released after his success, so I don't bedrudge him this role.

I thought it was going to go like this: sweet young Postmodern adolescent boy discovers that sweetness only makes life very frustrating for him, when it comes to women. Somehow he gets in touch with his "bad boy" side, creating an alternate persona with a French accent and a mustache who is the manifestation of this side of himself, and shows him how to "have success" with women. At first it seems to work, and he has "success." He meets a girl who could be his true love (could be, because they are teenagers) and wins her love (through innocence amidst his new persona). But eventually he takes the "bad boy" thing too far. It causes him heartbreak and the (temporary) loss of the affection of his could-be-true-love (the heroine). Somehow he is able to tame the "bad boy" (on his own terms) by a fusion of the spirit of it, back into his "sweet" self (his true character). The mustached persona fades away into oblivion, but not really, because it was the hero all along. By his renewed humbled innocence, and no longer the pushover Postmodern boy, he wins back the heroine. All's well that end's well--for a teenage comedy.

The movie didn't go like that at all. It started off like that, but then it crossed the point of no return by having the hero go "full bad boy." He commits manifest crimes of property, threatening the lives of others. He disgraces and dishonors himself and his family in public. That is, he goes off the Postmodern cliff.

By any classical standards, the story has boxed the hero into a corner. He must go to prison at the end. There is no way around it. But because this is Postmodernity, he also wins the girl too.

One person who really liked this movie is my friend Ben, the owner of the Lyric. I told him how I had to go down to Westminster to see this, because it left the local multiplex after two weeks. That set in a motion a chain of events that has led to Ben declaring "war" on Cinemark.

I swear I didn't want it to come to this!