A Look Inside: Adventureland
If you haven’t seen Adventureland the 2009 comedy-drama film written and directed by Greg Mottola, I recommend you stop what you’re doing now and watch it. Back in 2010 when I first discovered the film I expected good things from Adventureland, solely based on the cast because I had just seen Zombieland (Ruben Fleischer, 2009) with Jesse Eisenberg and admittedly I really liked Kristen Stewart after seeing her in the film In the Land of Women (Jon Kasdan, 2007). But before watching it I didn’t expect to see a quiet, confident, deeply felt coming-of-age film with sociological insight and a delicately optimistic romance. I strongly believe that Adventureland is one of the most underrated comedies in the last 20 years and while it is less laugh-out-loud funny than Mottola’s Superbad (2007) I don’t think the intention was to ever make some sort of follow-up to Superbad, but actually showcase something he had been working on for a few years that depicted his time working at a local amusement park in the 80s. Despite mostly positive reviews and the star-studded cast it never really got the recognition it truly deserved. Adventureland is more of a dramedy than a straight comedy and focuses on a coming-of-age story that feels much more inline with films by Wes Anderson than anything else. This film was Mottola’s way of dealing with some of the major hurdles of youth from working a crappy summer job to discovering yourself to falling in love for the first time and it goes beyond the normal “get laid at all costs” mentality (like Superbad) and truly digs at something deeper about what it really means to be intimate with someone and the cost that comes with that.
The film is set in mid-’80s Pennsylvania and the story focuses on precocious college grad James Brennan (Eisenberg), whose plans for a European summer and a New York-grad-school fall get crushed when his parents find themselves financially downsized. This forces James to take a summer job at Adventureland, a rundown amusement park. It is here where we are introduced to an assortment of characters nerdy co-workers to seductive woman to an idolized maintenance man. As the story progresses, James (like the audience) falls under the spell of Em (Stewart), a bewitching, outspoken girl marked by melancholy and confidence beyond her years. Her relationship with James is complicated by an affair she is having with a married burnout named Connell (Ryan Reynolds), the park’s maintenance man. On top of that complication, at the start of the film we learn that James has just been dumped by a girl he’d been seeing for less than 2 weeks but he’s already convinced that he is in love which is something he decides to share with Em (Stewart) on their first date. I would consider that less than ideal on a first date but through the process of getting closer to Em both in and outside of work he starts to share similar feelings for her resulting in him confiding in Connell (another not ideal scenario).
Adventureland feels like such an authentic portrait of that first love that most of us go through at some point in our teens or early 20s. While even though you barely know this person and they barely know you, you can’t help feeling these intense emotions but it’s that lack of true understanding of who this person is that ends up causing so much pain on both sides. This is one of the many things that we learn as we get older and one of the major themes that Mottola wanted to explore in Adventureland. He wanted to really look at this concept/dilemma that many young adults go through in life and determine if this guy (James) can go from the stage of only being infatuated with women to understanding that intimacy requires letting yourself be vulnerable and seeing a person for who they really are rather who you want them to be.
James makes a lot of mistakes throughout the film in his conquest for love like when he fails to have proper empathy for Em or when he takes bad advice from the wrong person or when he seems to worry more about what others think of him than what truly matters to him. However, by the end of the film he seems to genuinely grow by realizing that to care for someone means giving them the power to hurt you but also knowing that the relationship isn’t always about you. In life sometimes people are dealing with their own issues or struggles and part of growing up is accepting that and having the capacity to forgive people when they fuck up. Another big part of growing up is learning that you might be idolizing the wrong people and that real friends are the ones that stick up for you and call you on your shit. While none of these ideals are completely unique to this film, Mottola writes his characters with such sincerity that every member of the cast so perfectly portrays them.
I think there is something universal about these growing pains that transcend generational gaps and it is so refreshing to see a film that depicts the struggles that your average coming-of-age film seems to gloss over. Honestly, how many times are we going to see a film where the kids live in mansions, have an abundance of time and money and their parents are NEVER around? It seems that (some) writers overlook the reality of an average middle class family where we do find ourselves working at a soul-sucking job and working more often than not. But as Adventureland shows us, there is still something special about a crappy summer job because maybe that ends up being where you find your confidence or meet some of your best friends. I know from personal experience that a summer job can change you and your outlook on life because for me, this is a place where I found my confidence and it was the place where I wasn’t afraid to be myself. Mottola said “Amusement parks in particular can be really stupid and boring places and then the sun can go down and a breeze can be blowing and an attractive girl can be talking to you and flirting a little bit and a great song can come on, something you really love, on the loudspeaker. And with the twinkling lights, it can be a really beautiful place.” I believe there is always a sense of beauty to be found even in the ugliest of places as long as you’re there with the right people and I think that’s the main lesson that I took away from this film.
On paper, Adventureland is merely another teen comedy about losing your virginity over one magical summer. On screen, though, this story plays out with a sense of purpose and meaning beyond that. Even though you may be at a job you hate or your plans for your future aren’t working out or maybe you act like an idiot or get hurt by people that you care about. Life is always throwing something unexpected at you but as long as you can laugh about it and find people worth keeping around ultimately that’s all that matters. There’s no right way to grow up, everyone has to do it in their own way and on their own time. All we can do is try to learn something valuable from the things that happen to us and I think that’s why I love coming-of-age films in general because even though I am quite a bit older (well much older) than the characters in these sort of films, sometimes I still need that reminder and to me that’s the power of nostalgia (especially in films like The Perks of Being a Wallflower). That power of nostalgia is there to remind us that the bad times never seem as bad as they were in hindsight and no matter how much we have suffered at some point in time we managed to find our way through it and usually end up better for it. It is that lesson and the vulnerability of Adventureland that make it very much a film of its time but it’s purpose and meaning make it much, much more.
“Look, my theory is you can’t just avoid everybody you screw up with.”
Jesse Eisenberg, as James Brennan
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