While I can't say it's bad, ultimately I just don't care about the nostalgia that this film celebrates.
Kari and I had a rare opportunity to rent a movie to watch after the kids went to bed on Sunday. She said she wanted something with romance. I was in the mood for a comedy. We settled on Adventureland because it had both elements and it seemed to have gotten relatively good reviews. Plus, it stars Jesse Eisenberg, who I really enjoyed in The Squid and the Whale. Frankly, I was disappointed. It was cute and harmless, but ultimately uninteresting. Perhaps I’ve grown weary of these nostalgia films centered around kids in their late teens or early twenties struggling to find love, meaning, and themselves. I found the characters likable but predictable. It wasn’t much of a surprise when one character did or said something, and nothing ever surprised me over the course of the film. It’s not that it was bad. I just wasn’t interested in them.
Eisenberg simply plays a more confident and mature version of the same character he played in The Squid and the Whale. He even carries over the same esoteric, literary geekiness from that film, but in doing so, he loses much of the wounded, emotionally fragility of his character, rendering him much less interesting or sympathetic. Kristen Stewart plays Eisenberg’s love interest with the same apathetic, too-cool cuteness that defines her character in ‘Twilight’. Although she does show a bit more emotional depth this time around, especially in the later scenes that reveal much of her character’s own vulnerabilities, that depth is usually overshadowed by her apathy that leaves the audience wondering if she really means what she says or is just playing a part. Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, while often amusing as cast members on SNL, were just weird and out of place, as if they thought they were in an extended SNL sketch that didn’t work. (You know, the ones that air after “Weekend Update”.)
Ironically, the one actor whose performance I liked the most was Ryan Reynolds. I say ironically because I typically can’t stand his frat boy style of comedy. He was remarkably toned down but effective. He wasn’t going for cheap laughs or playing to the mouth-breathers. Instead, he had an understated strength in his performance that played more like a dramatic role than a comedic one. He certainly wasn’t the comic relief in this film, and it worked very well.
Ultimately, I just didn’t care enough about the main characters. By the end I wasn’t even rooting for the guy and girl to get together. I watched the film with the same amount of interest that I sometimes look at old photos from high school: “Aw, isn’t that funny?” “I remember that.” “Huh. I wonder what happened to him.” But my conclusion is always the same: “Man, I’m glad I’m not at that stage of life anymore.” I guess that’s why I’ve tired of these films. They celebrate a time in peoples’ lives that seems so carefree and blissfully ignorant of the real challenges that await them. They are content with a few good friends, the occasional romance, and the more occasional weed. But I choose not to celebrate that time. I’m glad to be done with it, and I never want to go back. Not because it was all that bad, but because I like my life now so much better. Relationships, activities, expectations, problems, and successes are more nuanced and multifaceted now, with complexity that I find both interesting and challenging. A film like Adventureland just seems too simple, predictable, and boring by comparison.
