MovieChat Forums > Youth in Revolt (2010) Discussion > To people who read the book

To people who read the book


How badly did this film butcher the book?
Did you picture someone like Michael Cera playing Nick?




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Butchered it completely.

I actually thought Cera did his best with a poor script. The casting in general in the movie was horrendous, but the Nick and Sheeni characters were adequate.

The movie obviously was the product of the studio trying to make a typical box-office teen comedy out of a book that could have been adapted into something so much better.

It's a shame. But what can you do.

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I agree. I think Cera did a good job with what he had...but what he had was awful. The feeling of the movie did not come across at all the feeling you get reading the book. They may as well have named it a different title.
The biggest offence to the novel is the change of the ending in what little role "Carlotta" played. In my opinion, that was one of the funniest parts in the book, and those were the scenes I was looking forward to the most. I was disappointed that was such a minor part of the movie.
However, I will say Justin Long did a great job as Paul. He was one of the only parts of the movie I actually enjoyed that stayed true to the character. I think Michael Cera would've done a much better job if the script wasn't so terrible. His Francois was pretty decent and I am glad to see him finally branching out into more complicated characters.
I didn't really like Sheeni, though. Portia is a good actress, but the way she played Sheeni was way too mild. But, that's just me.

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I see I'm going to have to read the book. I thought the movie was actually well scripted with some of the stuff that people are calling "flaws" actually being very subtly written jokes.

Reading the book will probably give me a bit more insight on movie and the origin of the humor in the script.

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