Welcome to Adventureland, where the worst job imaginable is about to inadvertently turn into the summer that changes everything. Fresh on the heels of directing the runaway hit “Superbad,” writer-director Greg Mottola returns with a hilariously human, semi-autobiographical comedy about an uptight, overeducated young man whose lowly new “career” leads to the wildest ride of his life – a journey through puking kids, angst-filled co-workers and a dizzy-making romantic triangle — all the way to facing his own future with guts and optimism.
A funky, self-professedly “funtastic” Pennsylvania amusement park, Adventureland appears to be the bane of recent college graduate’s James Brennan’s (Jesse Eisenberg) existence. He previously had big plans to spend the summer on a life-altering trek through Europe that would initiate him into real adult life. But when his family suffers an economic downturn in the middle of the Reagan 80s, James’ only summer trip is straight to a minimum wage job manning a game booth so existentially bankrupt, no one is even allowed to win the giant-ass stuffed panda.
Yet Adventureland isn’t quite what it seems on the surface. For behind the cloying cotton candy aroma, the grating disco songs and the near-pathological customers, there’s a whole other world of misfit friends, hidden dreams and most incredibly, after-work encounters with the alluringly sharp-tongued arcade girl, Em Lewin (Kristen Stewart). And when James discovers the hard-won courage to go to battle for Em, the result is a savagely funny yet sweetly heart-felt and unexpected encounter with “real adult life.”
Read the Full Production Notes
Adventureland
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Ryan Reynolds, Kristen Stewart, Martin Starr, Paige Howard
Directed by: Greg Mottola
Screenplay by: Greg Mottola
Release Date: March 27, 2009
MPAA Rating: R for langage, drug use and sexual references.
Studio: Miramax Films
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $11,472.018 (100.0%)
Foreign: —
Total: $11,472.018 (Worlwide)