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Dear Michael Cera,

I am a pillar of your adoring fan base, and have never been ashamed to admit it. It started with your role as George Michael Bluth on Arrested Development. As someone with a fondness for soft-spoken, skinny nerds, I was defenceless against Bluth, the perfect physical manifestation of "awkward" in a button-down polo shirt.

Then came Juno, and the lovable Paulie Bleeker. You traded polo shirts for golden-hued short-shorts (with matching headband), but the soul stayed the same. And anyone who says their heart didn't melt during that scene in Superbad, when you were trapped singing These Eyes for bunch of drugged out cool kids at a party, is either a bald-faced liar or in a massive state of denial.

I could have played Nick's (forget Norah) Infinite Playlist for, well, infinity. (You had me at "It's not a cab, my friend, I promise you.") Then others started to take notice. The "man-child" replaced beefy hunks as a mass object of desire. Director Peter Sollett told the Globe's Gayle MacDonald that he thought you were "cute as hell." (He also added: "I want to eat him.")

Then came Year One. Yes, you were the perfect chioce to play the first metrosexual neanderthal, but watching that familiar awkwardness unfold on screen, it started to feel like I'd heard this song before. Paper Heart was next: a pseudo-documentary in which you play a soft-spoken, inquisitive nerd-type, on a quest for love.

And now, coming to this year's festival, is Youth in Revolt. The plot summary goes like this:

"A hysterically twisted coming-of-age tale chronicling the awkward tribulations of a Camus-spouting, Godard-loving teenaged boy who is cursed with trailer-trash parents and a terminal case of virginity."

Mmm hmmm. Listen. I understand the reasoning for picking something you're good at, and sticking to it. Tom Cruise does it. Bruce Willis does it. But even they break up the Jerry McGuire's with a Magnolia, or the Die Hard's with a Sixth Sense.

It's possible that once Youth in Revolt has screened, I'll be proved wrong, but it might as well be called Juno 2: Juno Harder. Time for our favourite "man child" to man up and diversify. Do something different. Show us what you've got. Your fans (like me) will follow.

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