A young Canadian actor named Michael Cera came to our attention with a breakthrough performance as part of the brilliant ensemble cast in the masterful comedy TV series Arrested Development (immense gushing praise I know…but it was a damn good show). As with many an excellent show before it, it was taken away from us much too soon. Though for the young actor, in the glass half full category, being freed up from the television series opened up big screen possibilities for Cera.

He made his post – Arrested Development leading man debut in Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg’s semi-autobiographical high school tale Superbad. The movie came out during the tidal wave of success branching from Judd Apatow and all of his comedic friends that he took under his wing. The film gained a quick fan-base of worshipers and made Cera into a bona-fide movie star.

His next film made a hell of a lot of money considering it cost nothing to make, and even garnered a bunch of Oscar nominations. Not afraid to take a supporting role, he played the romantic opposite to tough semi-punk knocked up young mother to be Ellen Page as she played the title role in Juno.

Cera then starred in another out of nowhere low budget indie sleeper hit. It was not quite the box office leader as the previous couple movies…but Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist gained a popular cult status none-the-less. It was another underground music filled high school themed romantic dramady of a gig for the actor. Where he was again paired up with a girl fit for any respectable geek’s dream, in this case, Kat Dennings.

He finished up 2009 with his participation in Paper Heart. A wonderful weird romantic pseudo-documentary about a girls inability to find, accept or understand love. Sure, there was also Year One in 2009…but no one’s perfect (doing a movie from the writers of the U.S. version of The Office and the director of Groundhog Day seemed like a good idea at the time I’m sure).

Cera has managed to retain respectability, keep the Hollywood brass interested and keep up some indie cred by not going back to the well with a carbon copy follow-up roles over and over. Sure, he does take some criticism for always playing Michael Cera, but Jimmy Stewart always played Jimmy Stewart and Jeff Goldblum always plays Jeff Goldblum.

Youth in Revolt, his latest off kilter youth skewed romance features the tale of a lowly young man who’s in love with and almost gets the unattainable girl of his dreams. When things start going horribly wrong, his only option is to create an imaginary alter ego to boost his mojo factor. Seems logical enough to me…but of course, as these choices tend to turn out, things don’t go exactly as planned for our multi-personality inflicted hero.

The Michael Cera fan club that is the Mayfair presents his latest film, Youth in Revolt, at 7pm on March 31st / April 1st.