By Kim Voynar Voynar@moviecitynews.com
Short Take: Adventureland (views)
Adventureland, the newest feature by Greg Mottola (Superbad), is a fun trip back to the ’80s, when glamour-rock, mall hair and blue eyeshadow were cool. James (Jesse Eisenberg), newly graduated from college, is planning his long-promised post-graduation backpacking trip across Europe with his college (his roommate, when his parents drop the bomb that dad’s been demoted and there’s no longer money for trips to Europe or tuition at Columbia.
Forced to find a summer job but lacking any actual job skills, the best job he can find is at Adventureland, the local amusement park, where he finds himself relegated to “Games,” the lower tier of Adventureland employee-dom. At Adventureland, James meets Em (Kristen Stewart), to whom he’s immediately attracted, and makes a host of new friends, including the lovely but vacuous Lisa P., who’s attracted to him.
The film plays well overall, but pacing is a bit uneven, going from hills of laughter to valleys where it drags along a bit, and there’s little conflict to drive the plot; the story is basically just this guy and his friends, working in an amusement park, and what happens with his relationship with Em, who’s also involved in a relationship with the married maintenance worker. I’d have liked to have seen the script delve a little deeper into some of the characters and their motivations; the one character we learn a fair amount about is Em, who’s dealing with the fairly recent death of her mother and her father’s remarriage in addition to the complication of an affair with a married man.
Nonetheless, the film is largely buoyed by the charm and natural on-screen presence of Eisenberg, and there’s some funny stuff involving the amusement park owners, Bobby and Paulette (Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig). This isn’t a raucous comedy, it’s more of a dramedy, with a sweet, simple storyline about these kids making the best they can of a crappy summer job, something most of us will relate to — who hasn’t had a crappy summer job? Audience response at the packed premiere screening at the Eccles last night was very positive, lots of laughter throughout and enthusiastic applause at the end. It’s overall quite mainstream-accesible, and could have decent cross-over appeal across age ranges.
