Review: Adventureland

Adventurland is the story of James Brennan, a recent col­lege grad­u­ate with a nog­gin full of impec­ca­ble vocab­u­lary and lofty eso­teri­cisms. When his father takes a pay cut at work, his trip to Europe is called off and his fall plans for grad school are put in jeop­ardy, lead­ing him to a sum­mer job at the local theme park whose name is the film’s title. There, of course, he falls in love, learns more about him­self, and meets all kinds of wacky char­ac­ters along the way in this refined com­ing of age comedy.

Setting aside (most of) the raunch and rau­cous­ness of 2007’sSuperbad, writer/director Greg Mottola offers us a view of young adults that has become fright­en­ingly rare in Hollywood. Grounded yet hope­ful, with lim­ited but suf­fi­cient resources, James and his love inter­est, Em, are relat­able and real­is­tic twenty-somethings, not overly ironic Napoleon Dynamites or vac­u­ous shells like those found on NBC’s failedQuarterlife (does any­one even remem­ber that show?). It’s hard to describe their tri­als with­out giv­ing away much of the film’s draw, so let’s mostly take a look at the who instead of the what. Continue read­ing on the can­dler blog…