Adventureland

The setting is the summer of 1987, and most of the action takes place in and around the shabby Pittsburgh-area amusement part that also supplies the film’s title. The central characters are mostly recent college grads, rolling and tumbling through their not-so-dignified summer jobs at Adventureland. The central but by no means dominant figure in all this is James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg), a charmingly geeky literature major hoping he can earn enough money to pay for graduate school at Columbia in the fall. He’s also got the dilemma of his much-postponed loss of virginity. His emerging relationship with the glum but feisty Emily Lewin (Kristen Stewart), leads to further developments on all fronts. Eisenberg and Stewart do excellent work with the deftly written roles writer-director Greg Mottola has provided them. And those virtues carry over into at least a half dozen performances in supporting roles—Ryan Reynolds as a slightly older park handyman and love interest of Emily’s, Martin Starr as a tragicomic misfit, Matt Bush as James’ chronically immature nemesis, Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader as the half-daft couple who manage Adventureland, among others. Paradise Cinema 7 and Tinseltown. Rated R