God, the previews for Adventureland are terrible. They
make the movie look like it’s a sitcom on the CW—a dumbass,
slapsticky, laugh track-laden thing that spits and seizes along,
offering an oh-so-wacky look at just how zany a summer job can be! And
even if you manage to make it though the previews, you’re hit with the
vomit-inducing tagline: “It was the worst job they ever imagined…
and the best time of their lives.”
So because I’m an egomaniac, I’m gonna ask you to ignore
Adventureland‘s stupid ad campaign and instead pay attention to
me: Hilarious and poignant, Adventureland is written and
directed by Greg Mottola (who helmed not only Superbad, but also
episodes of Arrested Development and Undeclared), and it
stars The Squid and the Whale‘s Jesse Eisenberg and also Kristen
Stewart (who’s apparently in some Mormon vampire movie that’s like
catnip for lonely middle-aged women), and also, Saturday Night
Live‘s Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are in it.
Eisenberg plays James Brennan, who just graduated college with a
useless major in “comparative literature and Renaissance studies.” His
plans are simple: backpack around Europe with friends, then go to
Columbia for grad school. But when his father loses his job, Brennan’s
forced to return home and work at the crappy local amusement park,
Adventureland. As Brennan’s new coworker Joel (Martin Starr) puts it,
he and Brennan are “doing the work of pathetic, lazy morons,” and it
doesn’t help that Brennan’s bosses are the vaguely creepy Bobby and
Paulette (Hader and Wiig), nor that Adventureland’s PA system blasts
Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus” 20 times a day.
Luckily, Adventureland also employs the smart, sexy Em (Stewart),
who Brennan quickly takes a liking to, and vice versa. But it’s not
quite that simple: Not only does Em see right through Brennan’s false
veneer of erudition and confidence, but she also might have something
going on with Mike (Ryan Reynolds), Adventureland’s kinda-cool,
kinda-depressing maintenance guy who’s 10 years older than everyone
else there. While the earnest Brennan learns how disappointing and ugly
the world outside of college is, and while Em deals with no small
amount of personal drama, what results is a coming-of-age story that’s
awkward, sweet, funny, and has a really good soundtrack crammed with
the Velvet Underground, the Cure, and that aforementioned Falco
song.
Set in 1987, there’s a sense of bittersweet nostalgia throughout
Adventureland, and Mottola takes these characters a lot more
seriously than those in either Arrested Development or
Superbad. Adventureland is witty and dark enough to
distance itself from the sappy clichés of the coming-of-age
genre, but it’s heartfelt enough to feel more genuine and insightful
than the usual comedy where someone shouting “Boner!” counts as a
punchline. (That said, someone does shout “Boner!” in
Adventureland, and it’s really funny when he does.)
Adventureland is a hard movie to describe, but you should see
it. And yeah, I realize that’s not super eloquent or anything—but
shit, it’s gotta be better than ending this review with some dorky line
about the worst job anyone ever imagined or the best time of somebody’s
life.
