wm161.net

Adventureland in Brief

On tuesday night here on campus, the Student Union had a special free showing of Adventureland for students only. @keylynn and I went to go see it with friends, and I’d say it was a pretty good movie.

It starts out fairly nice. If you’ve seen the movie Superbad, Adventureland can be imagined as a kind of continuation of the story. James Brennan’s extraordinary summer plans are ruined when the 1980’s economy hits, forcing him to get an ordinary summer job working at Pittsburgh’s Adventureland themepark. There he meets Em, who is apparently the first girl he’s ever really fallen in love with. The plot feels muddy after that, until the very end.

But its a good kind of muddy. IMDB’s review sums it up nicely:

The set-up provides plenty of opportunity for crude humor, Mottola indulges with abundant involving puking, groin pinches, drunk and stoned behavior, and lax work habits. But his real interest is the navigation of dubious emotional and ethical straits by immature characters who make serious mistakes while trying to feel their way out of their unhappiness.
Adventureland (2009) – IMDB

Watching James and Em make bad choices while watching both sides of the story unfold left me feeling very empathetic towards them and at times even annoyed. They made bad choices while the real answer was in plain sight. Every so often, you’d expect one of them to finally come through. Instead, James’ awkwardness or Em’s stubbornness got in the way. In the end, it all worked out though. The ending leaves you hanging a little, just like the rest of the movie, but that may be seen as a good kind of hanging.

If you’ve got the time, I’d suggest seeing Adventureland. Its a worthwhile film with a really crappy tagline.

The content of wm161.net by Trever Fischer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License unless noted otherwise.
See http://wm161.net/copyright for more details.