On the couch

If you were to go on the trailer alone, the prospect of watching Adventureland would either thrill or terrify you.
Advertised as being “from the director of Superbad”, the flick was sold as being a spiritual successor to Greg Mottola’s ode to bromance, drunkenness and McLovin’ and is done a grave injustice by doing so.
Taking more from American Beauty than American Pie, Adventureland does have its fair share of crotch-punching, dope-smoking and raging against various machines and grown-ups but it also provides some enjoyable, if slightly predictable, teen romance, high- and low-brow chortles and a kickass soundtrack.
Jesse Eisenberg (Roger Dodger and The Squid and the Whale) stars as James, a geeky junior college graduate planning a summer of culture and debauchery in Europe with his pals before heading off to prestigious Columbia University in New York to study journalism. His plans are sunk, however, when his father’s demotion in work leaves the family mildly broke and the aspiring hack in need of a summer job if he’s going to fulfill his college dreams.
A life of good grades and culture have left the poor fella virtually unemployable so he sinks to taking a job as a general dogsbody at the local amusement park, Adventureland.
Under the slightly deranged eye of the park manager Bobby (Bill Hader) James befriends his entertainingly grumpy, trampy and dopey co-workers, learns that there’s more to the world than his previously closeted worldview and falls for prickly cool girl, Em – so pretty much all the bases for a teen rite of passage flick, right?
Wrong. While the basic story is boilerplate, Mottola fills his 80s world with rich, believable characters and a genuine affection for the time and place he’s representing.
Where characters could have been left as easy caricatures – the pretty idiot, the crazy boss, the geeky friend, the handyman with fidelity issues – the cast conspires to give their charges unexpected depths.
Foremost amongst them is Eisenberg whose over-educated nebbish, James, is a rare example of a clever, naïve screen teen whose intellect doesn’t completely abandon him when faced with the prospect of being cool or even accepted.
While firmly in the thrall of Em, played by Kirsten Stewart, he doesn’t stop being smart, nervous, interested in the world or other girls just because of his groowing infatuation. Instead he behaves like a normal person would.
Em, meanwhile, allows Stewart the opportunity to prove that, freed from the intellect-sucking vacuum of the Twilight film series and all the moronic naval-gazing that goes with it, she is actually quite a good performer.
The path of true love doesn’t run smoothly though with Em having a peculiar relationship with Adventureland handyman, Mike (Ryan Reynolds) and James having his head turned by park beauty, Lisa P.
Heartfelt and earnest, Adventureland is sweet without being sacherine but also takes a leaf out of Dazed and Confused’s book and doesn’t wrap every. single. plotline. up. Superb.
If the balance of this week’s reviews seems vaguely imbalanced, it’s because the other film to occupy my time was Mark Mahon’s  Strength and Honour, the tale of a father entering a bare knuckle boxing contest to make money to save his dying son starring Michael Madsen, Vinnie Jones and Patrick Bergin.
My mother always taught me that if I had nothing good to say, say nothing at all but, in deference to her good advice, I break my silence on this matter.
Strength and Honour is possibly the worst film set in Ireland ever to be committed to celluloid. In terms of Paddy Whackery, it ranks well beyond the likes of Darby O’Gill and the Little People, The Quiet Man or even Far and Away because, in those films’ defence, they were done by Americans who probably didn’t know any better.
Writer and director Mahon, on the other hand, IS Irish and should know better than to indulge, in seriousness, the sorts of stereotypes Kilnascully and Fr Ted used for comedy.
From Madsen’s mumbly faux Corkman to Jones’ twitchy geezah-sounding Traveller boxing champ and the painful script that lies between, there isn’t a good thing about the film – it is, quite simply, a travesty.