Cinema Revisited: Adventureland (2009)

Written and Directed by Greg Mottola. Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, Wendie Malick, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Martin Starr. Released April 5, 2009. Running time: 107 minutes.

By 2009, the 1980s became an era of nostalgia for people entering middle age, hence a film about youth from that period. Dotted with music from Big Star, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Hüsker Dü, Nick Lowe, INXS, and Crowded House, "Adventureland" is a seriocomic tale of romantic angst and familial struggles.

Jesse Eisenberg plays his usual screen nebbish, this time named James Brennan, who gets a summer job at the title amusement park. His reason is due to his wealthy parents discovering they don't have money to send him to Europe upon college graduation. At the fair he connects with pretty, troubled Em (Kristen Stewart) who plays her usual unsmiling, eye-rolling bastion of easy sarcasm, but in a manner that is more appealing, probably due to the context. Em is having an affair with married, handsome, shallow, phony maintenance man Mike (Ryan Reynolds). It's all pretty perfunctory stuff, buoyed by the comic interference of Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader as the fair managers, and an assortment of amusing characters that distract from the simplicity of the narrative. Martin Starr is particularly amusing as a droll tangential character, while Matt Bush is effective as the stereotypical annoying kid that gets his comeuppance in the end.

There is another layer to "Adventureland" by having it set during the 1980s. There is a deeper, more introspective look at the characters, that separates it from 80s teen/young people movies. The films of that era were usually empty comedies, or, like "The Breakfast Club," prolix and disquieting attempts at social narrative. "Adventureland" has well-drawn characters, even within the parameters of stereotyping. There is an acceptance among the disparate characters, and their quirkiness goes beyond the perfunctory nature of the narrative's easy conflicts and forces us to look beyond the surface.

Em's self-loathing due to a bad home situation and the affair she is guiltily engaging in with Mike, causes her to be unsettled by James's genuine affection toward her. She doesn't quite know how to respond to an actual good guy. James is central to the narrative as the quintessential good guy that is much different than the typical "guy types." They are in full force as peripheral characters, their dialog peppered with the words "dude" and "awesome" with alarming regularity. James is a budding intellect with a dry wit that makes him appealing on a deeper level. When Em says, " You know, James, I am so sorry for fucking this up. You were the only good thing that happened this summer" it truly resonates.

Greg Mottola is essentially a TV director, but he did helm both this and "Superbad;" two better-than-average films about young people (the latter a teen comedy). He isn't a stylist by any means, but gets the story told, especially in this case when it is he who penned the screenplay. "Adventure" is genuine, and while it drags in parts, it is able to be realistic while also being amusing.