Nostalgia in Adventureland

It was advertised as a romantic comedy; not as raunchy as Superbad, but not heart wrenching as The Notebook. Adventureland seemed to effortlessly cross genres. Directed by Greg Mottola, the same man who directed Superbad, it had some raunchiness, but some indelible moments where the audience collectively sighed and said, “Yeah, I remember being a young twenty something with nothing to lose.” More than anything, Adventureland is a nostalgic film; a story of one young man’s summer spent working in a theme park he wanted nothing to do with and meeting a girl he couldn’t get enough of.
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gives the movie an A-, citing it’s “observational eye for the late 80’s” and comparing it to George Lucas’ American Graffiti and Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused because of the way it chronicles the end of the decade of big hair and synthesizers. Gleiberman compliments the subtlety of the pop references, noting that the “park hottie, Lisa P., is obviously modeled after Madonna, but the pop star is never mentioned”. Gleiberman also praises the casting, from the staunch dumbness of Bill Hader (who plays the boss) to the coolness of Ryan Reynolds (the park mechanic). He never mentions a negative word about the film.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times was not as enthusiastic about Adventureland, but he did give it a high rating. He calls the film “quietly funny”. However, he truly enjoyed the performance of Kristen Stewart (Emily) who, in Twilight Ebert claims was “playing below her grade level”. Altogether, Ebert says Adventureland is “more real and touching than it may sound.” Then, at the end, he adds a story of his late teen/early adult summers lifeguarding at a pool near his hometown, and a girl he met there. Adventureland, even for Roger Ebert, is pure nostalgia.
Peter Travers, of Rolling Stone, is not so keen on Adventureland. “It throws a lot at us, but not enough of it sticks,” he says, let down by the fact that it was advertised as more of a comedy. The movie is much more of a romance, and though he enjoyed the sweetness of the main characters James and Emily, he preferred the silliness brought into the movie by Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig. This was one criticism of the movie at large.
“For a film set in an amusement park, it isn’t terribly amusing,” Scott Mendleson of Film Threat criticizes. Mendleson calls Adventureland Greg Mottola’s personal project, one which he was allowed to make after the immense success of Superbad. He calls the movie “too realistic” despite the fact that the amusement park should be an inherent prop for comedy. In fact, he calls the movie unsurprising. Again, Mendleson shares the same problem as Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, “it just wasn’t that funny.”
The lowest rating given to Adventureland was by The Boston Globe which claimed you could “feel the crackle of energy that’s missing from Adventureland which is trying to make emotional noise”. Also, it claims the film “neutralizes life with comedy as opposed to finding comedy in life”.
Adventureland, whether the viewer was expecting a hilarious raunch-fest like in Superbad or something a little more subtle, is a movie more life like than expected. However, it may be a little too real for its own good.