Virgin nerdboy with hip alter ego

'My name is Nick Twisp . . . and needless to say I'm still a virgin."

So goes the intro voice-over in Youth in Revolt, and so goes the uh-oh in your head: Not another Michael Cera teenage nerdboy flick.

But although director Miguel Arteta's adaptation of C.D. Payne's cult-fave book series brings little new to the coming-of-age comedy genre, it's hard not to be beguiled by Youth in Revolt.

Cera, toothpick thin, his turtle-eyes blinking in fits of adolescent awkwardness, plays Nick Twisp - the wry and brainy 16-year-old progeny of splitsville parents (Steve Buscemi, Jean Smart). But the gawky deadpan Juno and Superbad star also gets to sidle into the role of Nick's slick, sinister imaginary alter ego. This doppelganger, who emerges like a pitchfork-wielding cartoon demon, impels Nick to take a more proactive approach to life. His name is Francois. He has an accent, he smokes, he sports a mustache and tough-guy airs. All in all, it's a jaunty schtick - gleaned from old Jean-Paul Belmondo videos.

And so Nick, spending some summer weeks in a trailer camp in Ukiah, Calif., meets the beautiful, sophisticated Sheeni Saunders (newcomer Portia Doubleday). She can quote from Ozu's Tokyo Story, she has Serge Gainsbourg on vinyl, and when she and Nick go to the lake and she hands him a tube of sunblock and the line "Do you mind applying this to my exposed areas?" - well, you can practically see Cera melt.

Of course, there are obstacles in this potentially virginity-shedding relationship, one of them being that Sheeni already has a boyfriend, and that Nick has to go home to his mother's (and her deadbeat beau, played by Zach Galifianakis).

Enter the strong-willed man of action, Francois. And enter a run of absurdist scenarios that include laying waste to a block of stores and cars, a stealth invasion of an all-girls boarding school, and a magic mushroom trip that ends with a naked Fred Willard (a nutty neighbor) blissfully communing with a living room rug.

The writing (by Charlie Bartlett's Gustin Nash and an uncredited Arteta and Cera) is dry and loopy, and Cera most evidently relishes the Jekyll and Hyde business: Master Nerd and Monsieur Rogue.

Small but universally droll turns from the supporting cast - including Ray Liotta as a cop, M. Emmet Walsh and Mary Kay Place as Sheeni's parents, and Adhir Kalyan and Ari Graynor as Nick and Sheeni's respective sidekicks - provide unexpected goofball fun.

Some tacky animated sequences notwithstanding, Youth in Revolt is smart, cool and frequently hysterical.

Contact movie critic Steven Rea at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com. Read his blog, "On Movies Online," at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/onmovies/