Release Date (UK) - 11 September 2009
Certificate (UK) - 15
Country - USA
Director - Greg Mottola
Runtime - 107 mins
Starring - Jesse Eisenberg, Kristin Stewart, Ryan Reynolds
The year is 1987 and Jesse Eisenberg is James, just graduated from college. He is a typical middle class American geeky teen, a romantic who wants to study in New York to be a travel writer, is girl shy and still a virgin. His gap year plans fall through when his father is demoted at work and cant finance his trip or planned studies. Forced to work for the summer and too underqualified, or perhaps over educated for most summer jobs he eventually gets a job at the local carnival 'adventureland'. What follows is a very gentle teen romantic comedy story, predictable but enjoyable.
James quickly falls for Em (Kristin Stewart of Twilight fame), but she is a typical confused teenager and is secretly sleeping with the much older park maintenance worker Connell (Ryan Reynolds). Meanwhile James' supply of weed and intellegence seems to make him friends very quickly at adventureland and even the 'hotty' of the park Lisa P asks him out. The obsession with drink and drugs is a little weird here - the teens all seem to have no problem at bars etc even though I'm sure they aren't supposed to be 21 yet and yet make a big deal out of getting stoned. They also are fine drink/drug driving, although some of the films reliability fall down as there are quite a few shots where people in cars are far too slouched in their seats to be driving. There's not much character depth or background info but the film manages to float off the surface plot quite well without being too heavy or detailed, Eisneberg's superb acting holds the film together well but Stewart is a little wooden, it appears she is perhaps just riding well off the back of Twilight.
What puzzled me is why was the film set in 1987? At first I thought perhaps that director Mottola may be reliving his own first love through the film but after checking this doesn't seem to be the case as he was 23 in 87. Although the film pays tribute slightly to the clothes and music of the period its not made particularly obvious that this film is set then, if you'd missed the opening title I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't realise this. The heavy focus on soundtrack here echoes the recent film 500 days of Summer in that it may well sell more copies than the film itself with its classics, here for people reminiscing the 80's. I assume this movie is attempting for the indie label with its offbeat story but it is a still a teen rom com however hard it tries.. I hate to use the word quirky but this film certainly isn't quirky enough for an indie tag. That said its a slow but often enjoyable film with some funny scenes, Bill Hader as the slightly crazy adventureland manager being one of the highlights.