I think that everyone who loves Michael Cera's comedy – and that should be practically everyone – is a little worried about Michael Cera. Because even as Arrested Development becomes legend, Superbad wins over every twentysomething in sight, and Juno charms the pants off the entire nation, the hushed, often unspoken question is: how long can he milk this? Cera's shtick is killer, but it's also ultra-specific – he's the shy, unprepossessing, painfully awkward adolescent, a nice guy who's self-aware enough to get embarrassed but not confident enough to avoid it.
Cera is so good at playing this part in a way that's both touching and hysterical that it's propelled him to stardom. For me to say that I haven't enjoyed any of the incarnations of George Michael Bluth that he's given us over the past couple years would be a bald-faced lie. Indeed, I think the character he's crafted is one of the most impressive comic achievements of my adult lifetime. But even as I relish it, I start to fidget, because I can sense exasperation and annoyance threatening from just around the bend. Oh, maybe not mine – I could watch Cera do this forever, I tell myself – but certainly other people will soon lose patience and turn on the guy. One-trick pony, they'll yell. Do something else.
It doesn't help that, predictably enough, Cera – who was only 15 when Arrested Development began – is getting older. Even assuming a maximally forgiving audience, the awkward teenager can only hold him over for so long. He has to find his range, I keep thinking, and soon.
Cera's IMDb page sends mixed signals. Harold Ramis's Year One has him playing an average guy taking an epic journey in Biblical times alongside Jack Black – which sounded different until I read this script review, which described Cera's character as "skinny, timid and pathetic" and raved about how well Cera's "awkward gawkiness" will serve him in the role. Dammit. Youth in Revolt sounds even less promising in terms of branching out, with Cera playing a 14-year-old desperate to lose his virginity to an unattainably beautiful neighborhood girl. Scott Pilgrim Versus the World, based on a comic book and to be directed by Edgar Wright, is a wild card: the protagonist is a 23-year-old who has to defeat his girlfriend's seven evil exes in a supernatural martial arts battle to win her heart. Sounds interesting, but it's still in pre-production.
That, at last, brings us to Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, which will play Toronto in advance of an October release, and the source novel for which I just finished reading. The authors (Rachel Cohn and David Levithan) didn't write the screenplay, and it's hard to say how the book and the characters might have been rewritten to suit the movie's stars (Cera and Kat Dennings, perhaps best known for playing Catherine Keener's daughter in The 40 Year-Old Virgin). But if the movie is anything like the novel, it looks like Nick & Norah – an earnest, somewhat steamy emo kid melodrama -- offers the best hope for those of us who want to see Cera try something different.
You see, Nick is nothing like George Michael Bluth. He's not the smoothest operator, but he's in no danger of lapsing into total social dysfunction, either. He's an unapologetic indie kid, a bassist in a moderately talented "queercore" band, deep into the sort of screaming political punk rock that you think is the greatest thing ever when you're 18 or 19 (his favorite band is called "Where's Fluffy?"). He's getting over a rough break-up with an incredibly hot, sexually adventurous girl named Tris, who'll be played by Alexis Dziena. By all accounts, he's nice, intelligent, attractive, and reasonably confident – a find for any hipster girl who knows what's what.
The book tells the story of his whirlwind, night-long courtship with Norah. She's a complicated girl dealing with her own painful break-up. Both have to fight through layers upon layers of insecurities to trust each other and realize that they've stumbled onto something once-in-a-lifetime.
It's not, to be honest, all that inspiring. The novel was written for teens, but is racy enough that the older kids for whom it's suitable might be bored by the writing style, which is annoying in its self-conscious hipness. Moments in it are genuinely sweet, and Cohn and Levithan convey a nice sense of being young, free, and faced with a world full of possibilities. It's a quick, decently engaging read, but nothing earth-shattering.
The notion of Cera trying Nick's persona on for size, on the other hand, is exciting. I don't think a lot of people know that he's also a musician – his band has a MySpace page here; the song "Can I Call You Mine", on which he takes lead vocals, is actually kind of brilliant. This role is a logical next step; I hope it's the start of something new.
1. You didn't mention "Clark and Michael", which I thought had Michael playing a different kind of character. "Michael" on the show was much more confident, assertive, and angry, than any of the other characters I've seen him do. Though he was still a socially awkward misfit, there's no doubt about that.
Cera has the full acting chops/range/etc.; I think we'll see that in due time. He got most of these roles in like a 6-month period; it's not surprising they don't take him on a giant range ride at this point. Also, his choices will likely change once he has a solid amount of dough, and feels comfortable that his career is relatively secure.
Posted at 1:47AM on Jul 17th 2008 by Lance Brown