| Movie Description16-year-old Nick Twisp (Michael Cera) is an outcast of his generation; his interests include Frank Sinatra and the films of Federico Fellini. Nick lives with his erratic mom, Estelle (Jean Smart), and her oafish boyfriend, Jerry (Zach Galifinakis), in Oakland, California. When Jerry owes a group of sailors money for a car, Jerry takes Estelle and Nick on vacation to Clear Lake to a trailer park, where Nick meets Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday), an intellectual and beautiful girl. Nick spends time with Sheeni, learning that she's just as neurotic as he is. When Nick kisses her, she tells him she already has a boyfriend in the jock/poet Trent Preston (Jonathan Bradford Wright), and Nick makes up a girlfriend named Martha to impress Sheeni. Sheeni later reads his diary and is not upset that he lied to her. They buy a dog, whom Sheeni names Albert (pronounced Al-Bear), who becomes their "lovechild". But when time comes that Nick has to leave, Sheeni encourages him to be "very, very bad" so he can move to Ukiah to live with his temperamental father, George (Steve Buscemi), and they can be together.
Back at home, Nick coaxes his best friend, Lefty (Erik Knudsen), to keep Albert for him since Estelle hates dogs. Nick creates an alter-ego to help him with his misdeeds, a French boy by the name of François Dillinger (Sheeni dreams of her French husband to be named François), who has a deeper voice, a mustache, blue eyes, and a player/bad boy attitude. With François' help, Nick begins to mouth off to his mom and her new boyfriend, police officer Lance Wescott (Ray Liotta) (Jerry has just had a heart attack in a bar). Nick soon causes the most trouble when François takes the family car and trailer out onto the streets with gasoline in the back seat and "accidentally" lets the trailer go, sending it crashing into a local restaurant. Then François lets go of the car, spiraling it into the already flaming trailer, causing a huge explosion and traffic jam... |
