Quick and dirty: see it.
Slow and nasty: There is a lot to truly be enjoyed out of this film. I got really worried at one point, that we were about to fly into very cookie cutter romantic dramady territory. Really worried. I was worried because I’d enjoyed the movie so much up until that point, and I thought “well, it had to happen eventually.”
But then it didn’t, and I left the movie feeling like I’d just seen something wonderful. Adventureland is one of those films that takes place at a certain time, but doesn’t let the time take over the film. It’s set in the 80’s without beating you over the head with stonewashed jeans and side ponytails. It plays the time period as a place, not a joke, and it never takes you away from the movie with overabundant reminiscences.
Kristen Stewart is absolutely perfect as Emily, the kind of girl that a 20ish guy can fall in love with over the summer; not perfect, but attractive. Fucked up, wounded, vulnerable, but not whining or complaining about how things are. The sort that you started off just having a drink and a smoke with before you finally realize “hey…I could fall in love with this girl.” She would have run laps around most of the co-stars that they would put into a film like this.
Luckily she was working off of Jesse Eisenberg, who was given a great role to play in James. James is a guy who doesn’t always know how to say the perfect thing at the perfect time. He’s not amazingly handsome or witty or anything of that nature that you’d figure a guy going after a girl in a Hollywood movie would be. He’s very honest, and very smart, and he doesn’t apologize for either of those, and between him and Emily they ground the film delightfully.
The main complaint I can forsee people having is that this isn’t a laugh-a-minute funfest like many of the other coming-of-age films that have come out recently, and frankly, like the trailer makes Adventureland out to be. Sure, it’s funny, but it sort of seems more to be funny because of how things turn out, not because people are zinging one-liners back and forth.
This is how I can best sum it up:
You remember that scene in Superbad, right at the end, when Seth is going down the escalator and he looks back at Evan? There’s so much that is unsaid in that moment. So much about how there comes a time where your best friends aren’t the same best friends they were before. About how growing up sometimes means moving on, and that things aren’t going to stay the same like you thought they would. You were just laughing, sure, but there is something more…human at work in the background, behind the jokes. This is where Adventureland sits, and thank goodness for it.
Four outta five, and maybe some change.
Awesome review, sir! I was only mildly interested in checking this film out but now I think I’ll be heading out pretty soon and check this film out theatrically.