DVD Reviews

Adventureland

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Jesse Eisenberg
• Details: US/107mins (16)

If you're going to make a film about a recent college graduate blossoming late and coming into his own during an eventful summer, working a crappy job in a grubby themepark, then you could do a lot worse than enlisting the director of Superbad. Greg Mottola not only helms here, but writes as well, thus the man deserves the majority of the credit for this entertaining and heartfelt production. It could easily have been set in the world of Superbad, just twenty years earlier, and with a more ponderous, over-articulated lead character.
James has just graduated from college and is looking forward to going on to grad-school at the prestigious Columbia University in New York. But times are tough at home, and when his parents warn him that he'll have to get a summer job to have any chance of paying for a proposed trip to Europe, he struggles to even find what he believes to be menial work. When he gets a job at Adventureland, as a "games guy", he makes new friends and begins what will be the most fulfilling and long-lasting relationships that he'll ever have. But James falls for the angsty Kristen Stewart, who has her own issues, both at home and in work, making his initially simple summer money maker a lot more complicated.
You'd expect laughs when a film is being heavily pushed as "from the director of Superbad", but while Adventureland does have plenty of comedy, it isn't to nearly the same magnitude as that modern comedy classic. Granted, James could easily have been played by Michael Cera, but this is a different, slightly more earnest tale, that would have more in common with Judd Apatow's short lived, but brilliant TV series, Freaks and Geeks. It works because every single scene feels sincere, and being that the film is loosely based on the life of its director, honestly does appear to be the best policy.
Stewart is still an engaging presence on screen, even if she hardly stretches past the moody-teen shtick that has made her a global sensation with the Twilight series, while Reynolds is good in a rare supporting role. But this is Jesse Eisenberg's movie, and he's suitably neurotic, veering on pretentious, when we first encounter James. But, like all good characters, you get to know him and end up buying the movie in large part because of his performance.
It's been a stellar few weeks for cinema, and Adventureland continues the current trend of quality productions that deserve to find a wider audience here than they have across the pond. Massive kudos to Mottola for following up such broad a smash-hit with something so obviously personal. Well worth seeking out.

Review by Mike Sheridan