Adventureland
by Scott Foundas
Drawn from Superbad director Greg Mottola's own experiences working at a ramshackle, suburban amusement park in the 1980s, Adventureland feels at once personal and generational. For the serious, aspiring travel writer James (Jesse Eisenberg), the summer of 1987 is supposed to be spent backpacking through Europe. But a family fiscal crisis forces him into the only job he can find, manning a games booth at a low-fi Pittsburgh fun zone, where the ride operators rule the roost and a leather-jacketed maintenance man (Ryan Reynolds) exudes an air of impossible cool. The film centers on the virginal James' courtship of a comely arcade attendant (Kristen Stewart), who inspires him toward a newfound self-confidence, which he then nearly blows by succumbing to the tawdry temptations of a gum-chewing, bra-strap-baring ride girl. Though Adventureland inevitably traffics in certain clichés of teen and twentysomething relationship movies, Mottola cuts so swiftly to the underlying truth of those clichés — the euphoria and pain of youthful rites of passage — that he leaves most of the genre looking especially plastic and shallow.
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