September 2009
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Adventureland (15)
Printed 9th September 2009

What do you get if you cross a (John) Hughesian understanding of the teenage mind with a (Kevin) Smithian sense of adolescent self-worth? (Greg) Mottola’s sorta-biographical, wonderfully unassuming and touching ode to summers lost, Adventureland, is what.

It’s the summer of 1987 and the recently dumped James Brennan (the excellent Jesse Eisenberg – Roger Dodger / the upcoming, awesome-looking Zombieland) is forced to jack in his hopes of backpacking round Europe with his buddies in order to earn enough money to go to College next Semester thanks to a sudden downturn in family equity. Unfortunately for him, the only place hiring is the decrepit amusement park Adventureland. Fortunately for him, there’s much more to Adventureland than initially meets the eye.

For starters, the rest of the equally-dysfunctional staffers hate their jobs too (“we’re doing the work of pathetic lazy morons”), caring more about getting high and having fun than manning their booths and providing customer contentment. Then there’s cool, older, “need to know” cat Connell (the talented Ryan Reynolds) to hang out with and get advice from. But best of all there’s the alluring Em (Hermione Granger-lookalike and current object of every teen boys’ affection courtesy of Twilight, Kristen Stewart), the sort of girl that makes the long, tedious, exasperating (“Jesus f*cking Christ, they play this song like 20 times a day! F*cking sadists!”), endless days worth persevering through. Adventureland was the worst job Brennan could have imagined having... working at Adventureland turns out to be a pivotal time in his life.

A quirky, charming, heartfelt, funny and relatable look at teen trials and tribulations, it’s clear that Mottola is a man heavily-influenced by the Hughesian legend: Adventureland is none-more-so 80s in style, execution and requisite pop nostalgic soundtrack. A writing and acting showpiece full of witty dialogue, real teen issues and naturalistic performances of real teen (stereo)types, everyone should find someone to identify with here (the gawky intellectual shy guy – Eisenberg’s Brennan, the damaged rock chick – Stewart’s Em, the uber-nerd that everyone would be lucky to have as a best friend – Martin “Freaks & Geeks” Starr’s Joel, the popular girl – talented new-ish-comer Margarita Levieva’s Lisa P, the endlessly-annoying “joker of the pack” – Matt Bush’s Frigo) amongst the recognisable collective.

You shouldn’t be mistaken to believe this is merely a siphoned-clone of one of Hughes’ genre classics (Sixteen Candles / The Breakfast Club / Weird Science / Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) though; Mottola has enough individual talent for that to be an impossibility. Besides Superbad has already previously shown that he knows how to “do teen”, Adventureland just proves that he’s much more than merely an Apatow director-for-hire. He is a writer/director with a distinct and interesting voice that could do a lot worse than invoke feelings and memories of the grand poobah of the coming-of-age teen flick. In fact to be even mentioned in the same breath should be something of a crushing compliment.

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