Set during the summer of 1987, Adventureland stars Jesse Eisenberg as James Brennan, a recent college grad who thinks a degree in comparative literature can shield him from the banal horrors of the workplace and the heart. Stuck in Pittsburgh after his parents refuse to bankroll a post-graduation trip to Europe, the petulant James reluctantly takes a job at a local amusement park in hopes of putting his paychecks towards a Master’s program in New York in the fall.
A virgin by choice if not by circumstance, James is committed to saving himself for the right person. A prospect arrives in the form of his coworker Em (Kirsten Stewart), an aloof student at NYU with a troubled home life and a skeptical worldview ready to be changed by the transcendent power of love. The only hitch in the plan is Mike (Ryan Reynolds), the theme park repairman, who claims to be friends with Lou Reed and with whom Em has been conducting an affair all summer. It’s an endearing but often prescriptive story of first jobs and first heartaches, one that suggests that sex should be reserved for the people you love, and that if you pursue love with honour, you will be rewarded. Neither of those things are necessarily true, but they sound pretty good when you’re young.
It’s a well-observed fact that the period of time in which a person is at their most annoying is the summer after graduating college, and Eisenberg personifies this truism well. He’s made a career out of playing college students, his puppy dog face and dishevelled mop of curls evoking the innocence of a Liberal Arts seminar. The same year as Adventureland, he starred in Zombieland, a sci-fi comedy about a nerdy college student tasked with thwarting the apocalypse. The following year he starred in what is perhaps his most critically-acclaimed project to date, The Social Network, a movie in which he plays Mark Zuckerberg, maybe the most famous dorm-room dweller of all time. James Brennan may not be a huge departure for Eisenberg, but he manages to capture the foibles of post-adolescent idealism with a conviction that usually only an undergrad could muster.
"He manages to capture the foibles of post-adolescent idealism with a conviction that usually only an undergrad could muster."
Eisenberg foregrounds a colourful supporting cast whose idiosyncratic performances lend some quirk to Mottola’s carnival. Martin Starr, otherwise known as Bill Haverchuck on the cult classic teen comedy series Freaks and Geeks, appears in Adventureland as Joel, a misanthropic, pipe-smoking poindexter who becomes James’s confidant and on-the-job bestie. Joel is a slightly older version of Bill, a self-deprecating sidekick in high-prescription glasses, and while the similarities between the two characters may call into question Starr’s versatility as an actor, I say if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.
In performances more grounded than what we’ve come to expect from them, SNL veterans Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig play the carny managers who protect the park as if it were their child, a subtle humour emerging from their commitment to the bit. The only actor who feels out of place is Ryan Reynolds, who is simply too doe-eyed to be believable as a sleazy repairman who seduces college coeds in his mother’s basement; perhaps Matthew McConaughey was unavailable for the role.
The unassuming crown jewel of the cast is Kristen Stewart, who plays the part of love interest Em. Adventureland occupies an interesting position within Stewart’s filmography, the lone credit sandwiched between Twilight, the movie that made her a star, and Twilight: New Moon, its sequel. In fact, Stewart had yet to be cast in the supernatural teen romance series at the time of Adventureland’s filming. As the legend goes, Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke was so taken by Stewart’s performance in Into the Wild that she flew to Pittsburgh to stage an impromptu audition on the Adventureland set, and the rest, as they say, is history.
"From underneath this layer of insecurity peaks the grace, confidence, and quiet rage of a woman shedding her adolescence to step into what’s next."
Revisiting Stewart in Adventureland, I can see why Hardwicke was so determined to work with her. She takes the enigmatic Em, a manic pixie dream girl upon whom we’re supposed to project our romantic and sexual anxieties, and turns her into a character more fully realized than the movie’s protagonist. A lawyer’s daughter struggling in the wake of her mother’s death and her father’s quickie remarriage, Em is as distrustful of the world as she is unsure of her place within it. To convey this, Stewart puts Em in constant motion—sweeping her hair out of her face, biting her fingernails, shifting from foot to foot, looking over her shoulder like somebody’s watching. From underneath this layer of insecurity peaks the grace, confidence, and quiet rage of a woman shedding her adolescence to step into what’s next. She’s a character who glides into her parents’ cocktail hour, pours herself a drink, insults the decor, and then proceeds to pull the wig off her stepmother’s head, all without raising her voice or looking up from the floor. Another actor may have played this scene melodramatically, but Stewart, still a teen at the time, employs a muted approach both unexpected and true to life.
In the grand tradition of romantic comedies, Adventureland culminates with a lovers’ reunion in New York City. When her affair with Mike the repairman becomes gossip du jour around the rollercoasters, Em quits her job at the theme park and returns to the anonymity of student life at NYU. Guilt-ridden over his role in facilitating said gossip and desperate to prove his honourable intentions, James quits his job and follows her. He hasn’t saved enough money to pay for grad school, but he makes a loose plan to get a new job and start fresh in the city alongside his beloved. After a confrontation in the rain (of course), the couple returns to Em’s apartment, where they consummate the relationship that’s been building between them all summer, and that’s where the story ends. What happens to our young lovers after the final credits roll? Swiftly disillusioned by the difficulties of trying to maintain a relationship and make it in the city, James most likely returns with his tail between his legs to his parents’ house in Pittsburgh, where he reapplies for a job at Adventureland the following summer. Em, I imagine, stays in New York, and probably becomes a lesbian.
Set during the summer of 1987, Adventureland stars Jesse Eisenberg as James Brennan, a recent college grad who thinks a degree in comparative literature can shield him from the banal horrors of the workplace and the heart. Stuck in Pittsburgh after his parents refuse to bankroll a post-graduation trip to Europe, the petulant James reluctantly takes a job at a local amusement park in hopes of putting his paychecks towards a Master’s program in New York in the fall.
A virgin by choice if not by circumstance, James is committed to saving himself for the right person. A prospect arrives in the form of his coworker Em (Kirsten Stewart), an aloof student at NYU with a troubled home life and a skeptical worldview ready to be changed by the transcendent power of love. The only hitch in the plan is Mike (Ryan Reynolds), the theme park repairman, who claims to be friends with Lou Reed and with whom Em has been conducting an affair all summer. It’s an endearing but often prescriptive story of first jobs and first heartaches, one that suggests that sex should be reserved for the people you love, and that if you pursue love with honour, you will be rewarded. Neither of those things are necessarily true, but they sound pretty good when you’re young.
It’s a well-observed fact that the period of time in which a person is at their most annoying is the summer after graduating college, and Eisenberg personifies this truism well. He’s made a career out of playing college students, his puppy dog face and dishevelled mop of curls evoking the innocence of a Liberal Arts seminar. The same year as Adventureland, he starred in Zombieland, a sci-fi comedy about a nerdy college student tasked with thwarting the apocalypse. The following year he starred in what is perhaps his most critically-acclaimed project to date, The Social Network, a movie in which he plays Mark Zuckerberg, maybe the most famous dorm-room dweller of all time. James Brennan may not be a huge departure for Eisenberg, but he manages to capture the foibles of post-adolescent idealism with a conviction that usually only an undergrad could muster.
"He manages to capture the foibles of post-adolescent idealism with a conviction that usually only an undergrad could muster."
Eisenberg foregrounds a colourful supporting cast whose idiosyncratic performances lend some quirk to Mottola’s carnival. Martin Starr, otherwise known as Bill Haverchuck on the cult classic teen comedy series Freaks and Geeks, appears in Adventureland as Joel, a misanthropic, pipe-smoking poindexter who becomes James’s confidant and on-the-job bestie. Joel is a slightly older version of Bill, a self-deprecating sidekick in high-prescription glasses, and while the similarities between the two characters may call into question Starr’s versatility as an actor, I say if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.
In performances more grounded than what we’ve come to expect from them, SNL veterans Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig play the carny managers who protect the park as if it were their child, a subtle humour emerging from their commitment to the bit. The only actor who feels out of place is Ryan Reynolds, who is simply too doe-eyed to be believable as a sleazy repairman who seduces college coeds in his mother’s basement; perhaps Matthew McConaughey was unavailable for the role.
The unassuming crown jewel of the cast is Kristen Stewart, who plays the part of love interest Em. Adventureland occupies an interesting position within Stewart’s filmography, the lone credit sandwiched between Twilight, the movie that made her a star, and Twilight: New Moon, its sequel. In fact, Stewart had yet to be cast in the supernatural teen romance series at the time of Adventureland’s filming. As the legend goes, Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke was so taken by Stewart’s performance in Into the Wild that she flew to Pittsburgh to stage an impromptu audition on the Adventureland set, and the rest, as they say, is history.
"From underneath this layer of insecurity peaks the grace, confidence, and quiet rage of a woman shedding her adolescence to step into what’s next."
Revisiting Stewart in Adventureland, I can see why Hardwicke was so determined to work with her. She takes the enigmatic Em, a manic pixie dream girl upon whom we’re supposed to project our romantic and sexual anxieties, and turns her into a character more fully realized than the movie’s protagonist. A lawyer’s daughter struggling in the wake of her mother’s death and her father’s quickie remarriage, Em is as distrustful of the world as she is unsure of her place within it. To convey this, Stewart puts Em in constant motion—sweeping her hair out of her face, biting her fingernails, shifting from foot to foot, looking over her shoulder like somebody’s watching. From underneath this layer of insecurity peaks the grace, confidence, and quiet rage of a woman shedding her adolescence to step into what’s next. She’s a character who glides into her parents’ cocktail hour, pours herself a drink, insults the decor, and then proceeds to pull the wig off her stepmother’s head, all without raising her voice or looking up from the floor. Another actor may have played this scene melodramatically, but Stewart, still a teen at the time, employs a muted approach both unexpected and true to life.
In the grand tradition of romantic comedies, Adventureland culminates with a lovers’ reunion in New York City. When her affair with Mike the repairman becomes gossip du jour around the rollercoasters, Em quits her job at the theme park and returns to the anonymity of student life at NYU. Guilt-ridden over his role in facilitating said gossip and desperate to prove his honourable intentions, James quits his job and follows her. He hasn’t saved enough money to pay for grad school, but he makes a loose plan to get a new job and start fresh in the city alongside his beloved. After a confrontation in the rain (of course), the couple returns to Em’s apartment, where they consummate the relationship that’s been building between them all summer, and that’s where the story ends. What happens to our young lovers after the final credits roll? Swiftly disillusioned by the difficulties of trying to maintain a relationship and make it in the city, James most likely returns with his tail between his legs to his parents’ house in Pittsburgh, where he reapplies for a job at Adventureland the following summer. Em, I imagine, stays in New York, and probably becomes a lesbian.