I remember being bummed that I wasn’t able to catch the coming-of-age comedy film Adventureland when it was in theaters last April, so it was a real treat to finally catch up with it when it was released on Blu-ray last Tuesday.
Writer / director Greg Mottola’s semi-autobiographical tale about a recent college grad languishing away at the “worst job on Earth” at Adventureland Amusement Park in 1987 doesn’t exactly benefit visually from the Blu-ray format. But the movie has an intentional, gritty feel – as if it’s been filtered through someone’s memory.
The movie does a good job setting itself within the time period without pushing too many “Hey, it’s the 80’s!” cultural touchstones. Yuppies and Madonna are mentioned here and there, but the protagonists in this movie are far, far away from the mainstream. For the most part, they’re grossly over-educated, analytical and sarcastic shoe-gazing romantics with a Lou Reed obsession. I guess the comedy is supposed to come from the contrast of otherwise smart people doing what Martin Starr’s supporting character called “the work of pathetic, lazy morons.”
Falling somewhere between Shia LaBeouf and Michael Cera on the Geeky/Sensitive Leading Man Scale, Jesse Eisenberg plays James Brennan – a recent college grad whose plans to travel Europe with a friend are dashed when his Father loses his job. As things get worse for James’s family and his future in grad school at Columbia University is threatened, he’s forced to take a summer job. Overqualified for every job he applies for, James is forced to take a job at the local, run-down amusement park Adventureland.
The movie serves James a romantic interest in the form of Kristen Stewart’s Em Lewin. I have to admit that I was prepared to hate Stewart going into the movie by virtue of her preening, posturing, sneering performance in Twilight. But in Adventureland, she’s fascinating to watch. Em has a lot of problems at home and despite her cool and friendly exterior, she doesn’t really want to be known by anyone. Her performance really made me reconsider my previous negative attitude toward her as an actress.
James’s confidant at Adventureland is Joel, played by Martin Starr. A sarcastic and somewhat lonely intellectual who shows James the ropes at the park. Mottola gives Joel the pretentious habit of smoking a pipe, but makes him self-aware enough to know that it’s obnoxious. “It’s a revolting affection,” he acknowledges. “But it relaxes me.”
The rest of the cast is rounded out by Ryan Reynolds as the park’s mechanic and Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as the park’s managers.
Reynolds finally does something very interesting with his innate charm and makes his character a little sleazy for once. Hader and Wiig aren’t in the movie as much as the advertising for the film would have led you to believe. But they are used effectively throughout the movie to add comedic punch between scenes.
There really isn’t anything in Adventureland that hasn’t been done by a thousand other coming-of-age movies. But the film is very relaxed and sure about itself. More than anything, it seems to be about hanging out, getting high and letting relationships unfold. Watching it, I was actually reminded of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused – another period piece about hanging out, getting high and letting relationships unfold. The only difference here is that the jocks and popular kids have been completely replaced by the intellectuals and misfits.
Similar to Dazed and Confused, however, is the film’s excellent soundtrack. David Bowie, Big Star, The Cure, Crowded House, The New York Dolls, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Replacements, The Velvet Underground and, of course, Lou Reed wrap the film in a perfect period time capsule.
Inventively, in addition to skipping ahead to specific scenes, one of the menu features on the Blu-ray lets you skip to scenes using specific songs from the soundtrack. Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus” appears as a menu option no less than 4 times – a funny callback to a running joke throughout the film.
Additional bonus features include audio commentary with Greg Mottola and actor Jesse Eisenberg and the requisite deleted scenes. There’s a 17-minute making-of documentary and a few interesting behind-the-scenes featurettes utilizing some of the supporting cast members. “Lisa P’s Guide To Style” instructs you on all the “latest” 80’s fashion. “Welcome to Adventureland” gathers a couple of commercials promoting the park, the employee orientation kit and a peek at the official drug policy. “Frigo’s Ball Tap” instructs you on the proper technique and variety that is the art of tapping your friends in the balls.
Adventureland didn’t set the world on fire at the box office last April, pulling in $16 million domestically during its theatrical run. That’s a shame. The movie is confidently told and competently performed. It deserves a bigger audience and hopefully it will find it on DVD.
See I thought Kristen Stewart was terrible. All she did was brood and touch her hair through the whole movie. I felt bad for her and her family situation in the beginning but half way through i just became annoyed.
I think I read somewhere that Kristen Stewart touches her hair something like 50+ times during the course of the movie. I have to admit, I didn’t notice it at the time. I think her level of brooding was appropriate given her family situation and general directionless of a college girl her age.
It might be fair to say that her performance was propped up somewhat by the soundtrack – which was mostly a lot of new age romantic / new wave stuff. Real depressing music. Stuff her character would have been into.
I can’t stress enough how important the music is to this film. If you grew up at all during that time, recognize any of those bands and felt their music was important to you, Adventureland is spot on.
What really bothered me about the movie was that they replaced meaningful relationship with sex as the answer to a bad home life or a listless position. I’m not a prude, I can appreciate sex as much as anybody else but half of the point of a coming-of-age film is that you put aside some of the childish antics and move on in life, normally sex is thrown in somewhere along the way and may even be the climax (pun intended) of entering adulthood. But Eisenberg focuses on the sexual aspect of the relationship that is effectively non-existant with Stewart through the whole movie.
Also stewart comes across as intelligent but empty inside. I’m not sure if she was shooting for that but if she was going for jaded she overshot and went right towards a hollow. You want to smack her upside the head more than hope she escapes that home. Her and Ryan Reynolds are an even more unrealistic pairing. While Ryan Reynolds proved we can hate him even when he’s witty (hard to do mind you).
One final note, I have to say that Hader & Wiig were shoved in everybody’s face when the film was being shown in theaters. If anything it is the exact reason me and my fiance went to see it, outside of it being filmed in our town of Pittsburgh and knowing about 3/4 of the movies areas (outside of Kennywood/Adentureland in the movie). But ultimately the only truly rewarding scenes occur when Hader is being Hader and Wiig is playing any number of her nervous off-theiir-medication types. If you believed the ads it was going to be about Eisenberg and how he dealt with Hader. I think you could count the words the two had together on your hands and feet and writing them down would be less than a paragraph.
This movie is a classic example of self-indulgence gone wrong. Just because you think your life is interesting doesn’t mean the rest of us will.
I would consider Adventureland FAR less self-indulgent than most Hollywood offerings. Inglourious Basterds, for instance, was GROSSLY over-indulgent on Tarantino’s part.
Was Eisenberg’s character really just about the sex? I don’t think that he was, but it would make sense. I mean, the film establishes in the opening scene that he’s a virgin. A college graduate and still a virgin? You can expect him to be a little obsessed with the idea.
That said, he never came across like a hound dog to me at any point in the movie. If anything, he was overtly honest about himself – something most guys who are only about sex usually aren’t.
I am going to have to agree with the whole Kristen Stewart was annoying and too brooding. After a while I felt like, god, just get over it. Movie was interesting enough I guess, eh.
I had a very different interpretation of the flick, and my reaction was something like this: If I wanted to see two kids making out for 20-30 minutes, I would go to the mall. It would save me money and give me more variety.
I thought the movie was a pretty sloppy tale that never really went anywhere. The only reason anyone even paid attention to the main character was because his friend gave him a bag of weed – which shows how surface level many of the friendships were at the park. I liked a few parts of the flick, but mostly I just kept waiting for the plot to kick in – and don’t feel like it ever really did.
Obviously everyone has a different reaction to flicks, and that’s why blogs like this are awesome, so I’m just voicing my opposing viewpoint of Adventureland. I’m glad you enjoyed it, though, Tom. 🙂
I liked the movie quite a bit. When I first saw it I knew it was going to be nothing like the way it was advertised but they do that a lot with more serious movies that have comedic people (i.e. To observe and report). I think they did a good job subtley showing Martin Starr, Kristen Stewart, and Eisenberg just kind of realising how other people haven’t grown up. Frigo shows that off the most obviously, then the girl who dumped Starr when he really tried to open up to her and of course Ryan Reynolds who at the end was still hitting on teenage girls and lying about jamming with Lou Reed. And yes I did notice the Kristen Stewart’s hair thing, so much so I suggested it as a drinking game about halfway through the movie.
I couldn’t stand this movie. I hated Stewart, and I hated the plot. I agreed totally with your review except for the part about you liking it and hoping it would do better on DVD. Its story has been done a thousand times, and it’s not about anything interesting. Top it all off with the fact that it’s mocking my childhood stomping grounds (Kennywood Park, where it was filmed), I give it an all-around, two-arms-crossed, looking angry. But what do I know? 🙂
I just can’t believe I’m so upside down on popular opinion for this movie. Cami watched it last night and she thought it was slow and boring. Kristen Stewart, she said, was “the pits.” Maybe the soundtrack hypnotized me, or something. Because I certainly didn’t feel like it was a waste of time.
Maybe it’s because I didn’t pay to see the movie in theaters that I don’t feel like I got burned. But with everyone having such a cynical response to the film, it makes me wonder if my barometer is out of whack. If there is a reason to by cynical, I’m usually the first one to exploit it.
I wouldn’t have been impressed if I had paid full theater prices to see this movie. As a DVD though, I really enjoyed it. I don’t think the movie goes anywhere that dozens of other movies have already been to. It’s a very soft handed movie. All the heavy scenes such as drunk driving and infidelity don’t have consequences that match their seriousness. But the characters are all enjoyable and you become invested in their story and you get to enjoy the ride to the end. I was also really prepared not to enjoy this movie because of Kristen, but I have to give her credit, I thought she did a stellar job and proved to be very capable.
I rented this movie a couple nights ago, and I thought it was good. I agree that the soundtrack was great, but I think my favorite part was actually Jesse Eisenberg. I hadn’t seen him in anything before (or at least no big roles), and I thought he did a great job. I could definitely see Michael Cera doing the role instead, but I was glad that Eisenberg was cast as he was. I didn’t see his character as all about sex either, but just being stuck between Columbia + doing what you love, and doing something miserable to get by for the moment. It became kind of a learning experience in an unlikely place.
I thought Kristen Stewart did an ok job, but she did get pretty annoying. I also realized that the unshowered, angry-looking girl she is in real-life is pretty much the only role she can play in movies. Also, she always looks like she hasn’t slept in several days.
Having said that, I don’t think her character was treated fairly in this movie at all. (**Spoilers ahead) It’s established that Em is the only female character in the movie who has sex. Lisa P, despite her appearance and attitude, is revealed to be a virgin. When the park learns about Em and Connell (Ryan Reynold’s character), she is immensely ridiculed and has to leave the park. When James confronts Lisa P about this, she seemingly cannot see why Connell is at fault, only Em. James even calls her out on this. So Lisa P, the virgin who isn’t a nice person, will still get all the guys wanting her, but Em, who is a nice person but made some bad relationship choices, is of no interest to anyone anymore. “Slut-shaming” at its finest.