Adventureland Review

Posted by Shawn S. Lealos on 04.15.2009

The director of Superbad might have made the best coming of age film you will see in 2009

Written and Directed by Greg Mottola

Cast
Jesse Eisenberg ... James Brennan
Kristen Stewart ... Emily “Em” Lewin
Ryan Reynolds ... Mike Connell
Martin Starr ... Joel
Matt Bush ... Tommy Frigo
Bill Hader ... Bobby
Kristen Wig ... Paulette
Margarita Lewis ... Lisa P

Rated R for language, drug use and sexual references



Movies are so fake.

That line is never more applicable than when you look at romantic comedies. I don’t care if it is a popular film such as Pretty Woman or a lesser film like Hope Floats, the plot threads are so generic and predictable no one should be surprised from start to finish. There are some exceptions, such as When Harry Met Sally going against the grain to create something different, but when you sit down to watch Say Anything, you know John Cusack is going get the girl in the end.

That is not so bad, but the problem lies in the audience knowing everything that will happen along the way. Guy meets girl. Guy falls in love with girl. Guy screws up the entire relationship by doing something stupid, or vice versa. Guy (or girl) must then find a way to make things up in the end. Guy and girl live happily ever after. Nora Ephron ruined it for everyone when she perfected the genre that all girls will flock to and not much has happened in the last thirty years to change it. I’m not saying Nora Ephron created this genre, as it has existed since the beginning of cinema, I’m just saying she helped kill any progress it was making.

It was not always this way. A strange little Jewish man named Woody Allen tried his damndest to change the way we looked at romantic comedies. He took out strong leading men such as Cary Grant and Gregory Peck and replaced them with himself, an intellectual who would rather talk about his neuroses’ than sweep the woman off her feet. He also lost the girl at times. But then John Cusack, Richard Gere and Hugh Grant came along and it was back to the status quo.

There are still attempts to bring surprise and charm back to the old rom-com, but few and far between. Last year a surprising independent film starring Michael Cera was released that seemed to be on a different playing field than the generic boring chick flicks (27 Dresses is a great example). That film was Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and was one of the best entries to the tired genre in years. This year there is another addition, and once again it took an independent feeling film to break the mold.

Greg Mottola took nine years to direct the follow-up to his debut film Celebrity. Superbad is a commercial hit that tells a coming of age story set in the world of Judd Apatow. It only took two years to return to the big screen with his next film, the more personal Adventureland. At first glance you might see a similarity between his last two films. Both are about socially awkward adolescents who are, coincidentally, virgins. You might also be tempted to bunch the leading men into the same category, but when you look deep into the souls of the characters portrayed by Michael Cera in Superbad and Jesse Eisenberg in Adventureland, you will find very different personalities.

Adventureland starts with James (Eisenberg) finding out his father has been downsized and his parents can no longer afford his graduation present of a trip to Europe for the summer. They inform him he needs to return with them to his home in Pittsburgh where he needs to find a job to earn his own money for college. He decides he will tough it out for the summer and has a rich friend who has promised him a place to live in New York City so he can attend Columbia for grad school once the summer ends.

The only job James finds will take him is at the local amusement park, Adventureland. At this new job, he meets a group of very interesting people. His closest friend at his new job is an intellectual named Joel, played brilliantly by Martin Starr. The two work together perfectly and every scene they share takes you deeper into their scarred souls. With Joel, James finds someone he can speak to on his level and someone who can understand the situation James finds himself in. There is a bittersweet scene where Joel and James go on a double date with co-workers Em and Sue and Joel finds, to his amazement, himself making out with the girl after the date. When Sue explains she can’t see Joel again because her parents found out his is Jewish (he is actually agnostic), the defeat in Joel’s eyes tells you more about the character than any contrivance the script could have worked in.

As this is a romantic comedy, there needs to be a romantic interest for our hero James. That interest comes from Em (Kristen Stewart). Em is a very complicated individual, a girl whose mother recently died and finds herself living with her father and his new wife. To make things worse, this woman also began sleeping with Em’s dad before her mother had died and now is trying to recreate their home in her own image. Em is a girl who finds very little about either herself or those around her to trust and believe in. It helps that Kristen Stewart brings her A-game to the proceedings because this character could have felt fake and forced in lesser hands but is handled with care in this film.

I mentioned how James could be compared to any character Michael Cera has played recently but Jesse Eisenberg brings something powerful to this role. Eisenberg’s best roles have been as a damaged individual. From his amazing debut in Dylan Kidd’s excellent Roger Dodger to the Noah Baumbach feature The Squid and the Whale, he has proven to be a young actor with great range and talent. While he is similar to the awkward virgin Cera has perfected over the last few years, James is from a different world entirely. He is less awkward and more intellectual. He is not a virgin because he can’t get laid; he is a virgin because he has placed females on such a high pedestal none of them has ever met his standards for this one, great offering. He is waiting for the Holy Grail of women and no one ever comes close.

Until Em.

I grew up in a strong Christian household and I don’t find James as socially awkward as some other viewers might. He is graduating from college but still has the mentality of an adolescent. He is very smart in the classroom but finds himself inadequately equipped for the real world. He is a virgin who doesn’t find the idea of losing his virginity to be a sin, but instead has a peculiar view of how the dating game works. You see him in various circumstances where he finds the chance to get to second base and is taken by such surprise he stumbles out of the gate. He is not The Forty Year Old Virgin, he is a kid who hasn’t yet found his way in the world until stepping into a job at a rundown amusement park.

There are pitfalls, as you would expect in any rom-com or coming of age drama. There is another man who threatens to steal Em away from James and confusing circumstances threaten to tear them apart. What makes Adventureland special is how the script attempts to overcome these stereotypes. It could have ended with the couple finding their newfound relationship falling apart and one of them deciding to stand in the rain with a boom box overhead to win her back. When they finally come face to face, she would say something like ‘you had me from hello.’ This script never reaches into the crypts of film history to copy the same end we have seen since the beginning of time.

When someone does something that could screw things up, they talk and are honest with each other and work it out through conversation. When James is able to overcome the opposition for Em’s love, the two competitors share a goodbye and leave on good terms because in this film even the foil is not so bad after all. When our hero chases down the love of his life and stands in the rain confronting her, he doesn’t fill her full of cheesy one liners about her being the only one for him. He is honest with her, using his intellect to let her know he understands why she feels the way she does and asks for one more chance. That makes the final scene of the movie so special.

Greg Mottola wrote this movie long before he was asked to make Superbad. He took the job and proved himself capable of making a movie that looks like a genre staple and smells like a genre staple but when you digest it, it tastes like something very different. In between Celebrity and Superbad, Mottola worked on both Judd Apatow’s Undeclared as well as the fabulous Arrested Development. Mottola knows something about awkward situations and how to make them appear realistic and as completely against stereotype as possible. In Adventureland, he created his masterpiece.

The 411: Adventureland is a movie that takes its own genre and refuses to cater to its own devices. Director Greg Mottola drew career defining performances from his young leads, Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart. He also found a star in Martin Starr, who has me excited to see where he goes from here in his career. A fantastic supporting cast including Bill Hader, Kristen Wig, Matt Bush and a very generous Ryan Reynolds makes this movie a very entertaining ride. The script is smart and the twists and turns are heartbreaking in their sincerity. This is a great little movie that proves there is still originality to be found in the genre.

Final Score:  8.5   [ Very Good ]