Greg Mottola's "Adventureland"

One of the very few things I enjoyed about the "Twilight" movie was Kristen Stewart's valiant effort at bringing life to a character that was honestly called BELLA SWANN- a blank designed to be filled with its (mostly female) readers' projections. In retrospect, she may have been better than I thought, and I was surprised by how much I loved her and the rest of the cast of Greg Mottola's "Adventureland".

This is a movie I had no particular interest in seeing when it premiered, (the "Superbad"-in-the-80s campaign did noting for me), but it's now become one of my favorite coming-of-age-love-stories+hip-soundtrack. In an overcrowded field, Mottola's bittersweet script (about summer loving at the amusement park) distinguishes itself not by overcoming tropes, (let's face it, people in love behave in pretty tropish manner), but by winning details. He remembers how annoying it must have been to hear Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus" playing again and again in 1987, and if you don't recollect with him, you will now. There's a very communicable nostalgia in "Adventureland"- I was six, but I too will get sniffy at a Replacements track that punctuates that inexplicable teenage dissatisfaction.

Jesse Eissenberg (from "The Squid and the Whale") plays James, Mottola's youthful stand-in. He's a familiar awkward nice guy who makes mix-tapes of despair and stutters on his way to subtle but perceptive punchlines, (I think I rehearsed to play that guy troughout high school.) When his post-graduation plans go to hell he's forced to take a pathetic, just-for-the-money job, (oh, hey, I AM this guy!). He ends up in "Adventureland" with a surrogate family headed by a paternalistic Bill Hader (sample line: "Hey, James! James, right, that's how you pronounce it?") and his SNL bud Kristen Wiig. Also in the family is pretty but sad-beyond-her-years Em (Stewart); Connell, (Ryan Reynolds) the married maintenance man who's seduced impressionable Em with possibly fraudulent tales of having once jammed with Lou Reed; 'nad busting Frigo, (Matt Bush); wisdom-provider Joel, ("Freaks and Geeks"' Martin Starr); and park hottie Lisa P. (Margarita Levieva, who, like most of the people here, provide huge warmth and understanding to what really are just sketches.)

And I do love it when a movie sucks up to my musical preferences. Particularly effective among many effective moments is the Velvet Underground's "Pale Blue Eyes" juxtaposed with an adoring shot of Stewart's stolid face in the moonlight. Remember that moment? Staring at that girl/ boy/ goat/ whatever that's driving you around and you don't say anything because you've been shut up by love and also don't want to ruin the fact that you're obviously about to get some? (Never mind that she's intently thinking about the cooler, older guy who's never going to leave his wife! It's totally like "The Apartment" for teens!)
Talking about the guy-who-leads-the-girl-on: Reynolds, (like Steve Zahn just did in "Sunshine Cleaning") takes what could have been the role of a philandering slime and makes you feel a certain kind of sadness for how people's mistakes accumulate as years go by- until they're clinging to that one story about Lou Reed and unable to remember if the song is called "Shed a Light on Love" or "Satellite of Love".

"Adventureland" is not perfect, but you'll care for it beyond its minor flaws, which would have fit so well in the Cameron Crowe/John Hughes' movies it grows out of. I didn't mind its plotless, lazy-summer feel as much as its misguided last act concessions to the box office. Much as one wants first love to turn out right, you know it doesn't. That's why they they don't call it LAST love.