Adventureland [DVD]

By Clint Morris

Nobody will ever replace John Hughes. He was a legend. Apparently he wouldn’t go to bed at night until he’d come up with 100 new jokes (I assume for whatever project, or projects, he was working on at the time). And his hard-work always paid off – there’s not a bad film in his bunch. I doubt we’ll ever see teen dramedy’s as good as “The Breakfast Club”, “Pretty in Pink” and “Some Kind of Wonderful” again. But if there’s room for someone to come close to being this generation’s ‘Hughes’, let it be Greg Mottola, a fresh face in the DGA that’s seemingly already hit his stride as a terrific ‘teen movie’ director after only two [major] efforts.

Mottola’s first, the Judd ‘Knocked Up’ Apatow-produced “Superbad” (2007) was a hysterically funny, and also rather poignant look into the terrific but turbulent life of the modern-day teenager. For all intents and purposes, it was Mottola’s “Sixteen Candles” (Hughes’ big breakthrough)… and “Adventureland”, Mottola’s latest, is his “Breakfast Club”.

A much deeper, and more profound piece of work, the comedy/drama/romance/biopic (the film is loosely based on the writer/director’s own youth, growing up working for such an establishment) set in the summer of 1987 about an uptight recent college grad (the always impressive Jesse Eisenberg, “The Hunting Party”) who is forced to take a job at a local amusement park when he realizes he can’t afford his dream European vacation.

Forget about German beer, world-famous museums and cute French girls-James’ summer will now be populated by belligerent dads, stuffed pandas, and screaming kids high on cotton candy. Lucky for James, what should have been his worst summer ever turns into quite an adventure as he discovers love in the most unlikely place with his captivating co-worker Em (Kristen Stewart, the awkward doll at the centre of teeny hit “Twilight”), and learns to loosen up.

With an amazing soundtrack of 80s faves (It plays on loop in my car!), a terrific ensemble support cast (Bill Hader & Kristen Wiig are both adorable and amusing as the park owners, Ryan Reynolds is as charming as ever as the park playboy & resident handyman, Martin Starr is the pushed-around – usually by women – park vet, and Wendie Malick and Jack Gilpin are perfect as James’ hoity parents), and a heart-warming, emotion-drenched screenplay by Mottola, “Adventureland” is a real winner.

It’s not often you find a film (especially one that only made about ten bucks at the box office – what is it with you people!?) that can make you laugh, make you cry, make you cringe, make you go all gooey inside within the space of two hours… but this does it effortlessly. If only it’d made money, we might’ve seen a sequel.

Extras

Among the extras, a 17-minute featurette on how Mottola transferred his real-life yarn into cinematic form, a very funny commentary by the director and Eisenberg, and an option to jump forward to your favourite songs in the movie.

Yeah, would’ve been nice to have had more… but as I mentioned earlier, the film made next-to-nothing at the box office so a commentary, and a featurette, isn’t that shabby an offering considering.