Director: Greg Mottola
Cinematographer: Terry Stacey
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Margarita Levieva, Ryan Reynolds, Martin Starr, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig
Stumbling across the gem of a movie 'Adventureland' was the result of researching Jesse Eisenberg from The Social Network and obsessive watching of rollercoaster youtube videos.
Adventureland is set in the 80s and has equal amounts of scenes set in the daytime and nightime. Daytime is mostly reserved for activity in Adventureland and is filmed in a washed out yellow filter. Nightime scenes vary between the theme park with all its bright lights, bars and house parties resembling scenes from the classic, American Graffitti. The entire film has a washed out aesthetic and is multicolored in line with the funpark theme although not excessively so.
What is interesting is that the whole story takes place during summer vacation between when the lead character James (Eisenberg) graduates high school and starts college. And while everyone is wearing t-shirts and short shorts acting as if the temperature is sweltering the whole movie was actually shot in the middle of winter in Pittsburg and every day the crew had to find ways of hiding the snow that had fallen the night before.
The script is well paced but I feel that it was unrealistic that James (Eisenberg) would have been able to be such a player in the film and gotten away with being angry at Em (Stewart) for sleeping with the repairman given that he was dating another girl at the same time.
