It appears that no one is more eager to get a girlfriend than the many on-screen personas of Michael Cera. It all began with his break-out roll on the truly LOL US comedy Arrested Development, playing the overly- sensitive George-Michael Bluth; where the girl of his dreams turned out to be his cousin Maeby.

Since then, Cera has literally been playing the same character for his entire big screen career to date, essentially looking for the same thing in everyone of his films - love. And Adam Sandler thought he was typecast.

Cera’s real problem with this scenario is that he does such a fine job playing the role. In Youth in Revolt however, he finally gets to break free of these character-trait chains. Well, sort of.

Hello, is that my career? I only have to play a sensitive teen for the next 30 years? Cool!

Considering the trailer trash qualities his separated parents appear to imbue, Nick Twisp (Cera) is remarkably well-educated. Of course, it takes more than just being cerebrally superior to your peers to be attractive to the opposite of sex, as Nick the virgin continually discovers.

With his mother desperately in need to get out of town quick, Nick soon finds himself in what appears to be the Mecca for all trailer trash, the mobile home park known as Restless Axles. It is here that he meets the radiant Sheeni (Portia Doubleday) and quickly falls in love.

Despite an obvious attraction between the pair, Sheeni explains to Nick that she does in fact have a boyfriend in the shape of the percussive poet Chad. Nick decides that if he wants Sheeni, he’s going to work damn hard to win her back. Enter Francois Dillinger – Nick’s new alter ego; he’s a lover, a fighter, a care free, care less kind of character. Basically, everything that Nick isn’t. With Dillinger’s help, Nick takes tentative steps into an unfamiliar world to win over the girl of his dreams.

Although it sounds like all Cera is doing here is conforming to type-cast, in the hands of director Miguel Arteta, he is able to have some fun with his downright evil doppelganger Francois. In fact, his enjoyable turn as Francois may well be the only opportunity Cera will get in his career to act the badass.

No one can accuse Arteta of being a prolific director, having only made Star Maps and Chuck and Buck since 1997. But his quirky style is still thankfully intact here. Not only is there a real offbeat quality to the script, there’s also some nice animation thrown in for good measure.

He also gets a lot out of a great cast. Newcomer Doubleday is just the right amount of Lolita as Sheeni; her performance makes it perfectly understandable that Nick would fall for her refined charm as well as her obvious beauty.

There’s also a bumper collection of supporting role fun to be had here too, that includes Ray Liotta, Fred Willard, Jean Smart, Zach Galifianakis and Steve Buscemi.

But undoubtedly it’s Cera who once again steals the show – twice. It’s really difficult not to be swayed by his geeky charm as Nick. Yes, we’ve seen it all before, but no-one does it quite like he does. The only downside is that we don’t really see enough of his bad other self Francois; you can tell Cera is just having a blast playing him, tapping into all manner of dark characteristics he’s thus far not been allowed to show.

Arteta has managed to steer the film away from being a run-of-the-mill Superbad clone, pointing it instead in a rather more pleasingly direction, closer to the weirder waters of Napoleon Dynamite.

Cera’s now legion of fans will lovingly lap up every minute of it – quite rightly too. After all, he’s not the poster boy for awkward, sex-starved, sensitive teens for nothing. And that doesn’t look like changing anytime soon.

Whatever you do though, don’t discount Youth in Revolt as just another near-the-knuckle teen romp. Just like Francois, it’s darker and more sophisticated than that. Funnier than hell too. Viva la revolution.