Everybody’s (Sorta) Fine

Early looks at "Everybody's Fine," "Youth in Revolt" and "A Single Man" at AFI, the L.A. film fest in flux.

When producer David Permut explained “the arduous process” that led to C.D. Payne’s first Nick Twisp novel being adapted, it became clear how unlikely it was that this movie actually happened. Miranda Freiberg, the 17-year-old daughter of a literary agent, took a copy of Payne’s book with her to Costa Rica during her summer vacation because she needed to read something “over 500 pages long” for a high school book report. She wound up pitching the movie to Permut and became a co-producer on the film. (Still, her father Mickey drove a hard bargain for the book’s rights.)

Gustin Nash was working at a Ritz Camera in Burbank when he wrote a spec script that caught the producers’ attention and according to Permut, beat out several more established screenwriters to get the gig of turning Payne’s tome into a film. Getting “The Good Girl”’s Miguel Arteta to direct his first film in seven years was another stroke of luck, something that Permut had been trying to do since seeing “Star Maps.”

If it weren’t for all these strange twists and turns behind the scenes, “Youth in Revolt” might not be the weird, kicky pleasure that it is, a spiritual cousin to Terry Zwigoff’s “Ghost World” that could accurately be described as a teen sex comedy, but not of “American Pie”/”Porky’s” variety. In fact, stars Michael Cera and Portia Doubleday would likely be more comfortable at the Algonquin Round Table than they would at the mall food court or any number of teen movie hangouts.

It’s a point driven home when we meet Cera’s Nick Twisp, who indulges in some morning masturbation before picking up Fellini’s “La Strada” at the local video store. The cure to Twisp’s virginity might rest in a local trailer park, where he’s whisked off after his mother’s new boyfriend (Zach Galifinakis) sells a lemon to three Naval officers and has to go into hiding. It’s there Twisp meets Sheeni Saunders, a similarly overanalytical Francophile who seeks an escape from religious fanatic parents who’ve somehow managed to fit a full Farfisa organ into their trailer.

Twisp makes futile attempts at luring Sheeni away from the house for some alone time, resulting in the development of François Dillinger, a ruthless, sexually aggressive incarnation of Twisp’s id with a moral compass as thin as his pencil mustache. As Nick finds himself stealing a car and spray painting “God’s Perfect Asshole” on the side of a trailer at Dillinger’s suggestion, Cera gives his most accomplished performance to date, both in his usually jittery persona as Twisp as well as behind Dillinger’s darkened aviator sunglasses.

Arteta also seems content to revel in the peculiarities of Payne’s world and Cera’s oddball antics, mixing in the occasional animated sequence (like a claymation opening sequence) and rarely missing an opportunity for a keenly observed gag — don’t think for a second that Farfisa is left untouched. But Arteta’s gift remains his ability to find the heart in even the darkest of subject matters. While “Youth in Revolt” doesn’t approach “Chuck & Buck” territory, he’s able to find the nobility in Nick’s struggle, even if his main aim isn’t much more than making you laugh for an hour-and-a-half.

There’s more of an immediate nobility to Tom Ford’s “A Single Man,” and the fashion designer-turned-director’s wisest move is to shake it off as fast as he can. With a tailor’s eye for detail, Ford immaculately composes every shot — every costume is haute couture, every line feels weighty and… it all threatens to overwhelm Christopher Isherwood’s delicate story of a day in the life of a college professor (Colin Firth) who’s just lost his lover (Matthew Goode) in an automobile accident.

Thankfully, Ford has coaxed a career-best performance from Firth, who actually lets his usually coiffed hair down to play George Falconer, a Brit transplant in ‘60s Santa Monica who’s come undone and spends the time in between flashbacks preparing to kill himself when he’s not entertaining Charley (Julianne Moore), his sole friend in Southern California.

It’s an understatement when Falconer is stopped in the parking lot of a liquor store to tell a hustler (Jon Kortajarena), “This is kind of a serious day for me,” but Ford laces the film with gallows humor, eliciting a particularly juicy laugh when Falconer’s trip to the gun shop to buy bullets is met with a young clerk’s ends a sales pitch with “…Perhaps one for the little lady.” Ford appeared undaunted when introducing the film’s L.A. premiere, though he said he was overwhelmed as he looked out over the sharply dressed crowd at the Grauman’s Chinese. Appropriately, it was the kind of mixed signal that this year’s AFI Fest gave off as a whole.

[Additional photo: "A Single Man," Weinstein Company, 2009]

Pages: 1 2