A coming of age comedy set in 1987, Advetureland follows James Brennan (Eisenberg) who instead of spending his graduation holiday travelling around Europe, has to take a job in ‘Adventureland’ when his dad loses his job. In Adventureland Brennan is placed working on the fixed ‘games’ rather than the cooler ‘rides’ area of this fun down, fixed theme park. Here he meets Em (Stewart) a fellow employee, can their relationship get to first base let alone blossom in the boiling pot of teenage hormones and skewed relationships that surround them.
Directed by Greg Mottola who also directed Superbad another teenage comedy, Adventureland again focuses on teenage dreams and the angst of growing up. Eisenberg, more recently seen in The Social Network, is great in the geeky / intelligent role, where he more than matches Michael Cera in a niche he thought he had cornered and Stewart as the object of his affections clearly starts to map out her post Twilight career admirably.
It’s a good film, although not one necessarily I would recommend someone goes out of their way to watch, if it was on the television I would suggest it but I wouldn’t want to recommend it as cinema viewing. Its funny, although not laugh out loud funny, its twisted, although only slightly and never to the highs and lows reached by Superbad. Having said that there are some obscure, weird and great back characters who shine when they are on screen and the main characters are suitably angst and troubled although the film gets a little bit predicable the more it continues.
Don't miss it but wait until it gets to TV – this low key film deserves to be seen, sometime.
Director: Greg Mottola
Cast:
Jesse Eisenberg - James Brennan
Kristen Stewart - Em Lewin
Bill Hader - Bobby
Kristen Wiig - Paulette
Ryan Renoylds - Mike Connell
and a half
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