"I just go to a therapist to brag about my job where I get to kiss girls." — Jesse Eisenberg
When Michael Cera appeared in befuddled virginal fashion in Superbad, he started a trend, although the disaffected geek has been already featured in a string of coming-of-age films and TV shows. Among some of the more notable examples are Matthew Broderick in WarGames, Anthony Michael Hall in The Breakfast Club, Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People, Jason Schwartzman in Rushmore, Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting, Wes Bentley in American Beauty, and John Heder in Napoleon Dynamite.
Part whiz, part social flake, we're talking about a figure that dates back to literary icons like Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in The Rye by J. D. Salinger), misfits like Sal Mineo's character in Rebel Without a Cause, and the pre-hipsters that John Cusack played in Say Anything and High Fidelity.
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Jesse Eisenberg, a revelatory up and coming actor raised in New York by a college professor and a professional clown, belongs to this exemplary area too. Eisenberg is 26 years old, unconventionally attractive and easily recognizable by his neurotic gentle shtick; his features ooze bonhomie, and he's well versed academically. In addition to his newly blossoming film career, he is currently an anthropology major at the New School in New York and a budding playwright. Eisenberg is often compared to Michael Cera by critics.
Hollywood has recently re-prioritized its old stereotypes and has given these oversensitive, intelligent dupes their chance. This character constitutes a figure that has been evolving since the '80s and got its consolidation by way of the slacker inamoratos in '90s grunge cinema (for example, Paul Rudd in Clueless, Stephen Dorff in So Fucking What, James Spader in Sex, Lies, and Videotapes, etc.) who seemed to find their ascension once the indie phenomenon made its way into mainstream culture, as an article in Paste Magazine discusses.
But the inscrutable nerd in film is a more complex type than we think, since it agglomerates disparate characteristics that suggest essentially a blatant contradiction (awkwardness meets a romantic side) which could extrapolate Jerry Lewis or Rick Moranis's nuttines with Woody Allen/Dustin Hoffman's histrionics along with James Dean/Montgomery Clift's old-fashioned romanticized detachment.
Going back to the parallels to Michael Cera, it's true the two share a gawky attitude, nervous sensibility, and hip wardrobe, but the biggest difference is also what separates both irremediably, and it's how their fictional characters deal with sexual situations differently. Jesse Eisenberg takes us to a level not matched enough before the '00s films, where the disenpowered variorum of dorks started to acquire self-awareness and self-respect, and thereby their stories were diversified and polished up.
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