Adventureland

There will be a backlash against "Adventureland", or at least a disappointed reaction from some. The reason being that the film was marketed as another raunchy-sweet comedy from the Apatow empire, when in fact it has almost nothing to do with those films, and is very different from most of writer/director Greg Mottola's previous film "Superbad" (which is great in its own way, but it's nothing like this film). It is a tender, intimate romance surrounded by goofball humor, but the extent of the 'dirty jokes' in this movie is Jesse Eisenberg's character James getting out of the pool at a house party with an erection.

The movie is a sentimental (not sappy, mind), very personal, journey through the summer of 1987 for recent college grad and deep thinker James Brennan (played superbly by Jesse Eisenberg), whose plans for the summer fall apart (due to Reaganomics affecting his father's income) resulting in him having to get a crappy job at the titular amusement park. There he meets Em, played by Kristen Stewart, and the romance, which is the focus of the film, begins. This is very, very far removed from the slob-meets-babe formula common in comedies in recent years. James is a virgin, true, a 22 year old one at that, but that has far more to do with the character's tentative nature than any 'quest' to get laid (ala "The 40 Year Old Virgin", which works on its own terms of course, but is again nothing like "Adventureland"), and he is far from bad looking. Em isn't a dolled-up 'hot chick' with perfectly styled hair and perfect style, she's moderately well-dressed and naturally beautiful, but wears makeup in a grand total of two scenes, and is actually NOT the 'babe' in the film (that's Margarita Levieva as Lisa P, who, though the 'babe', is not the sought-after one).

I am finding it hard to describe exactly why I loved this film as much as I did, but I think it mostly comes down to subtle, wonderful writing by Mottola, who was obviously telling a personal story here and did a great job of it. The screenplay is a funny, poignant take on post-collegiate angst and love, with some elements of social satire, and its focus is one of the most memorable and wonderful romances in quite some time. This romance makes Stewart's breakthrough hit "Twilight" seem even more offensively dumb, because of just how real it is.

Mottola, who absolutely nailed "Superbad" as a director, does even more with "Adventureland". His work with the actors is perhaps most notable. Bill Hader does what he did in "Superbad" and Matt Bush plays a slapstick role as Tommy Frigo, but everyone else is given more emotional poignancy and range to work with. Ryan Reynolds has abandoned his trademark smarmy shtick for a straight role in the film. As noted by Nathan Rabin in his review of "Adventureland", in a lesser film Reynolds (a failed attempt at a 'rock star' who is in an unhappy marriage and is having an affair with Em, and who is a loser to everyone but the deadbeats younger than him at the amusement park) would be a villain, James Brennan's adversary in a typical love triangle. In "Adventureland" he's a real person, and a rather tragic character. Not a nice guy, not a bad guy either. Martin Starr is great in the main supporting role as Joel. Mottola's direction is fantastic visually as well, with every scene brimming with intensity when it needs to be and the comedic timing again excellent. His use of music is absolutely spot-on, and if you thought the funky greatness of the "Superbad" soundtrack was good wait until you hear this low-key but incredible soundtrack made up almost entirely by great 80's pop songs (and not the mainstream garbage). Great musical score by Yo La Tengo as well.

The film is ultimately such a massive success I think due to Kristen Stewart. I knew she was a capable actress but did not know that she was this terrific. She is transformed into Em for the entirety of the film, and is overwhelmingly intense for the entirety of her performance, whether the raw (but not even close to raunchy) sexuality of her scenes with Eisenberg (and boy do they have a rare sort of chemistry) or the understated sadness of her scenes with Reynolds. Eisenberg and Stewart are so wonderfully understated with their performances that their romance feels realer than anything I've seen since Zooey Deschanel and Dan Schneider in David Gordon Green's "All the Real Girls". This might be a familiar journey but the treatment of Reynolds' character is only one thing Mottola does different from the John Hugheses of the world. Everything about this film is just more real and more understated than so much of what we've seen done with similar things.

The film has one or two scenes where plain lust is the focus, and absolutely none where the movie becomes about sex jokes. That James is a virgin is a side note, part of the character and nothing more. It couldn't be less about James wanting to bed Em, it couldn't be more about him being totally in love with her. Although critics are falling over themselves to praise the film (89% on RottenTomatoes at the time I'm writing this and a score in the high 70's on Metacritic) some have called it 'ordinary'. Perhaps much of the public will agree with that minority of the critics, but the film thrives on capturing 'ordinary moments'. The simple beauty of James, Em, and Joel watching fireworks on the 4th of July or a marijuana-fueled bumper car round scored to "Just Like Heaven" by The Cure. That's what this film is about. It's wonderful, it's beautiful, and if it's not a sleeper hit this year then it will eventually become a cult classic. It's something special, that much I know for sure.

Adventureland was a lot better film than I anticipated. The summary sounds incredibly boring, which it is. There is really no excitement or anything overly engaging about the film. However, Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, and the rest of the cast make for an interesting story. Their characters are really well developed and how all of them mesh together during a summer of non-fun in the 1980's is intriguing. Eisenberg and Stewart play the same exact roles they do in every single film I've ever seen them in. Eisenberg is a neurotic but witty guy with self-esteem issues and Stewart is a beautiful but troubled young woman with emotional issues. They definitely don't go outside the box for their roles but they have mastered their niche archetypes. All-in-all, this isn't the most entertaining movie around but it has a certain charm to it. The characters feel real, the music takes you back in time to a more pure era, and the story is relatable to just about everyone.

I saw this movie at The Sundance Film Festival in Salt Lake City and I've been wanting to see it for months but I have a habit of anticipating movies and building them up, then once I see them I am disappointed. This was not the case. It is a lot like Superbad set in the 80's and minus the drawings. The quirky, awkward humor is there, the teen party humor is there, the love humor is there. One thing this movie has that Superbad didn't though, is a truly heart felt and believable love story that gives Adventureland a bit of a more serious tone. While it is hilarious it also has you really pulling for the young lovers and gets you involved in their affairs. With out giving too much away, all I can say is 'Go see this movie. If you liked Superbad, you'll like Adventureland, if you hated Superbad, you'll like Adventureland. It's a win-win situation.'

Do you know that feeling you get when you've been lied to about a movie. A while back when In Bruges came out, the trailers pitched the movie as a wacky, Guy-Ritche-esquire, comedy with midgets and whores. Imagine the surprise of most of the movie goers when they went to see this film, and it turns out to be a very dark comedy, written about a suicidal hit man who is know facing regret and depression in the worst vacation spot ever. This feeling of surprise can sometimes make or brake how a movie is received for some people. Most of the time the audience will walk out of the film thinking that they've been lied to just so they will have payed for a ticket and other times the audience realizes that, if the movie wasn't pitched to them as this picture that they've seen before, they wouldn't have seen the film in the first place.

This is how I felt when I left Adventureland. Let me get this out of the way, Adventureland is NOT A COMEDY. I know the trailers pitch it as one, the director says it's one, and under the genre section of IMDb it says 'Comedy. But, this film, honestly, has two jokes in it, most of them supplied by Bill "By God You're In Everything Aren't You?" Hader. I'm not saying that this film only has two jokes in it like there are a lot of jokes in here but they're not funny. I'm saying that they're are only two jokes. Yes, Adventureland was pitched to us a romantic teen comedy about a horrible summer job but instead the film is a romantic drama that focuses on 21+ year old, coping with the fact that life is in fact full of sour lemons and you need to take a horrible job because it's the only thing you can do. I too was surprised that Adventureland wasn't a comedy but once you get past that, the film is actually very enjoyable and turns out to be one of the most intimate romance films on the same scale as 'Once.'

The film centers around the double named protagonist, Brennan James. Who is a couple thousand short of the money he needs for his trip around Europe as well as the first couple months rent for when he starts going to school in NYC. His parents inform him that his dad has been demoted and he's gonna have to pay for the money himself. The only job that is still hiring is the seedy amusement park Adventureland where all of the employees do nothing but talk about how much their job sucks, smoke weed and get drunk during their shifts. Brennan-James falls in love with the smart-dangerous girl, Em. But due to his drug connections, the hot girl of the theme park starts to become attracted to him. A love triangle turns into a square, then a hexagon and soon just a big pile of mess.

The film itself could go for a very whimsical style here due to the amusement park setting but because of the directors previous works (Freaks and Geeks and Superbad) he decided to go for a super-realistic approach. I also feel like he chose to direct this drama because he wanted to expand himself as a director. The direction itself is pretty subtle, which is for the best. I was really engrossed in the script itself and I felt like any "special" work the director put in it might have taken me out of this twenty-something romance story.

The story is a very good one. This too goes for the extremely realistic approach. Watching this film I remembered all of the times I had experienced something like this with a girl and that's when I realized that the film had totally sucked me in. I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen to Brennan and Em and once their relationship hit a couple of big rocks I remembered all of the times I had nearly ruined my relationships by doing something stupid. (i.e. listening to my penis and not my brain)

I was worried about the acting at first, it has a newbie as the lead and the twilight girl as his love interest. Not to mention Ryan Renolds playing a mentor figure, one that is a couple of cockiness points away from being the one in Waiting. However the director must have worked his magic with these three because they display some of the best performances I've seen in a while. They emote, they repress, they do everything a real person does in a relationship to the degree where their characters are so well developed your rubbing your eyes in disbelief like some kind f college screwball comedy. Then again, realism seems to be the thing Adventureland seems to do be going for.

This film is trying to grab the attention of the forty-somethings that were twenty-somethings in 1980 by making the most realistic nostalgia trip I've ever seen. The costumes seem like they're right out of value village, the dialog seems like you could have said it today and the acting makes the characters seem as if they're real people.

If feel that Adventureland wasn't pitched to the audience as a dramatic look at young love during the backdrop of the late 1980's because in the latter part of this decade, the only way young people are willing to look at the 1980's is through the eyes of irony. Looking at hot new styles as stupid idiotic fashion choices. Adventureland looks past all of that and makes a film that seem to be a grown up Sixteen Candles and because of this new approach to a beaten down idea, I not only applaud this movie but recommend it to people who have been looking for something new.

So I saw "Adventureland" at an advanced screening and I found it to be quite entertaining and funny with a certain "real & genuine" vibe. It takes place in the mid-80's and involves a college grad played by fairly newcomer, Jesse Eisenberg who takes a job at a local amusement park to save money in hope to go to New York. Though the job maybe dreary; he finds himself having the best time of his life. I personally loved how director, "Greg Mottola" incorporated a few clever sequences one involving "weed cookies" which just made it diverse to other teen comedies. The music was typical 80's which also made the movie that much more fun! I particularly loved "Lou Reed." All in all the story and characters were enjoyable to watch and you can truly find yourself relating to them. It may not compare to movies such as "Superbad" comedy wise because it is much more of a semi "dark humor" type reminiscent to "Juno." Genuinely speaking, I personally really enjoyed this movie and would actually see it again with friends at the theater for a good time, which I can't say I would for the majority of other teen comedies out there.