Best known for the quirky comedies Chuck & Buck and The Good Girl and more recently working on the TV series Ugly Betty and Six Feet Under, Miguel Arteta returns to the big screen with an amusing, inconsequential black comedy set in northern California. The central character, Nick Twisp, is an intelligent 16-year-old virgin played by the currently ubiquitous Michael Cera (star of Juno and Superbad). He's from a broken home, surrounded by cranks, eccentrics and weirdos, all played by familiar character actors. Nick falls in love with a smart, kookie girl addicted to all things French, and, as an aid to pursuing her, he creates for himself an alternative personality or "alter id" in the form of François Dillinger, a suave, moustachioed agent provocateur. Under François's malign influence, he embarks on a succession of dangerously destructive adventures, one of which involves causing several million dollars' worth of damage in Berkeley. Highly entertaining.
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