A slight twist on the celebrity adage that would aptly fit the subject of this article would go: ‘All the nerdy indie boys want to be like him, ALL the girls want to sleep with him.’ Who, you may incredulously be asking yourself if for some unlikely reason you have completely bypassed the title of this post, could this technologically literate, social misfit of an Adonis be? The answer, obviously, is Canada’s second greatest ever export (Arcade Fire will forever be number one): Michael Cera. And why do all the hot, cool, intelligent, beautiful and interesting girls want to sleep with him? Because he is the nice guy who also happens to be libido-lubricatingly funny. A winning combination, and one that is put to use yet again in the new Edgar Wright film Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.
Since moving into the movie industry after the end of Arrested Development, Cera has become Hollywood’s go-to-guy to play the gentle teenage boy who in his unassuming, self-effacing, and mild-mannered way never fails to get the girl of his dreams. So, when in his last film Youth in Revolt, adapted from the ’93 novel by C.D. Payne, his character utters the line “In the movies the good guy gets the girl, in real life it’s usually the prick”, it rings noticeably true.
The list of the films in which he plays this character is long and continuing on a biannual basis to get longer. Superbad, Juno, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Year One, Paper Heart, Youth In Revolt, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Yes, he’s continually playing roles closely resembling his own self, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that is the extent of his range, although there is little evidence at the moment to suggest otherwise. Apart from his role as Nick’s Twisp’s alter ego François Dillinger in Youth In Revolt perhaps, though that still wasn’t really much of a departure from his norm. The fact is that this type of character is in such constant demand in American indie and studio cinema at the moment that Cera doesn’t deserve to be overly criticised for being a ‘one-note’ actor as he’s merely capitalising on his style of acting currently being so very desirable. Moreover, the boy deserves credit for making these types of roles so popular. Yes, he keeps playing himself but he keeps getting parts that require him to play himself because he’s so damn good at it!
He’s also been helped by a resurgence of really good American teenage films in the last few years, the best since the 1980s. The stupid frat boy humour of American Pie and everything that followed in the 90s have been firmly put in place by films like Juno, and even Superbad, which although still silly, is more intelligent than the high-school films of the previous decades. Mainly thanks to it’s interest in platonic male love rather than purely concentrating on boys looking to get their end away. However, even though Michael will always give the filmmakers and the audience what they want, having him as a star of a film is no guarantee that it will be any good, as even his presence couldn’t save the disasters that were, for different reasons, Paper Heart and Year One.
Cera may be the cord wearing geek who gets all the girls but Woody Allen he ain’t, as anyone who has seen the self-penned Clark and Michael web series will testify. He is the characters he plays in films which is why he always plays them well but these characters are also slightly wittier versions of himself as anyone who has seen him on chat shows should concur. He can’t write, he needs to be written for. Although, in the 2005 short film Darling, Darling, where, quelle surprise he plays his usual socially inept self, the most interesting thing about the film is that it credits Cera for ‘additional improvised dialogue’ and you get the feeling that this is what he’s good at. He can’t write a whole screenplay on his own or with a partner (as Clarke and Michael proved) but what he can do is turn up, be himself and subtly adapt his own personality to whatever are the slight difference in nuances between himself and the character he is playing, thus he actually just is the character and can talk in the same style of dialogue that is written for him whilst slightly improving it.
At least in Scott Pilgrim, based on a series of comics by fellow Canadian Bryan Lee O’Malley, there’s a twist which sees his character have to defeat the girl of his desire’s seven ex-boyfriends in cartoon computer-game style martial art combats, but he is still essentially, playing the same character. This is no bad thing as the Michael Cera character is a great character, and no one currently plays it better than Michael Cera. But, you worry about for how long he can keep at it. What’s he going to do when he enters his thirties? His whole shtick is about being an awkward yet charming youth; will being an awkward adult stuttering towards middle age be quite so charming? Probably not.
Nevertheless, for me, and all indie kids, geeks, nerds, dweebs, he is currently Jesus, he is Buddha, he is who we try to be, the epitome of, dare I say it, ‘geek chic’. The whole essence of someone who has most fun making mix-tapes and playing in crappy bands can be summed up in his character’s lines in Juno when he responds to being told that he’s so cool without evening trying, by saying ‘I try really hard actually’.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is in cinemas this summer. The trailer is out now.
