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I heard a lot of good talk about Adventureland when it came out, although it seemed like it got very little box office action, which is why I ended up seeing it at the dollar theater. I think this could be in part because it was advertised like it was some sort of crazy Judd Apatow comedy (see: Bill Hader running around with a bat in the commercials) and ended up being a mellow summer movie. Also, being a movie about summer and completely capturing the essence of a summer in the 1980s, I think the release date in early April was a terrible idea.

The movie stars Jessie Eisenberg, who was also in The Squid and the Whale. I didn't recognize that I knew him from that movie until someone pointed that out. It seems as though there are more and more movies coming out with classic Michael Cera-esque awkward acting, and I did hear some people claim that this was just an imitative performance, but while I can see the similarities, Eisenberg never felt unnatural in his role. The character he plays is James, who has recently graduated from college. He was planning to travel around Europe with his friends before heading off to graduate school, but his parents have some financial difficulties, and he's forced to spend the summer at home. He has to get a job, but as he tells his parents, he's not even qualified to do manual labor even though he has a college degree. I remember those frustrating days after graduation.

James gets a job at Adventureland, the local amusement park owned by a thrifty couple - the kind of people who resort to gluing spare pirate eye patches on stuffed bananas when they run out of googley eyes. There, he makes several friends, including Em, a girl who takes an instant liking to him although she's secretly involved with a married guy. James's awkward courtship of Em is mostly well written, and the other friends he makes feel very legitimate. The whole movie in general feels like someone's real summer memories. They very well may be. That feeling is what makes this movie enjoyable. There are a lot of funny moments but it's got more of a quiet humor and a laid-back mood. It smacks of summer and the time period of the 80s is less gimmicky, which I enjoyed a lot.

While there could probably have been some attention paid to a little more editing, overall I was actually surprised by Adventureland. It had character without being ridiculous, and was more about character development than I expected it to be. I don't exactly know what other movie I would compare it to (which may in itself be a compliment), but I actually liked it quite a bit.