Adventureland: Do you Miss Kristen Stewart?

If you do and you have not seen this movie, go rent it or buy it. Apparently, his one was filmed during a break between some of the Twilight movies. So if you are one of Stewart's fans and wants to see that beautiful face of hers, her sexy voice and sensual lips all over again, this movie is the chance.

Onto the movie itself. It is a love story that takes place in a small city and involves the lives of several others, in this case the people working at Adventureland, a local amusement park that is open during summertime. The main character is James (Jesse Eisenberg) who has plans to go to a good university in New York but those plans meet with a disappointing ending when his parents tell him they  can no longer help him economically. James looks for a good summer job and only finds one in Adventureland. Left with no other choice he gets the job and while at work he meets a girl called Emily or Em (Kristen Stewart). Em is pretty, easygoing, openminded but has had low moments in her life and as a result she is a bit afraid of being involved sentimentally with someone. Still both date and James feels so attracted to her he even confesses he is a virgin. Unknown to James, Em has a secret: she has been having an affair with the park's technician, Mike (Ryan Reynolds), a married man. When James gets to know about that he is upset and decides to confront Em. A friend of James's takes him to Mike's mother's house where apparently Mike and Em usually met since Mike was a married man. James is even more infuriated when he sees Em coming out of the house. It turns out that Em has just told Mike that she does not want to continue the relationship because of her feelings towards James but she cannot explain that properly to James who does not want to listen to her. In the following days Em quits her job at Adventureland when everyone gets wind of her thing with Mike and moves to New York. By the end of summer everyone has to leave because Adventureland is closing down until next summer. James is unable to pay for his university studies even with his check because he is unable to forget Em so one night he gets drunk and crashes his car into a tree. Paying for all the damage caused is costly but still James decides to go to New York. He knows Em's address and goes to her apartment to tell her he is in love with her.

It is not a bad film, not a family film, or thiller, or action movie, there is no comedy, or horror, and still it is interesting. There are more things happening in this film, more characters to be discovered but essentially everything is about how fate using hard luck puts James and Em together. Those two make for a more believable couple than Edward and Bella for sure though not as appealing. Their problems reflect those of their generation (the film is set in the eighties) but also convey a message: that  common people can be as complex and puzzling as anyone else. The characters in this film are anything but models, they do not have exemplary lives but they want to improve. You can see that in James's actions towards Emily when he basically opens his heart to her and also Em wants to play fair with James when she finds out she loves him. James's eyes full of awe and wonder when he arrives in NY announce a better future for him. His final encounter with Em can be interpreted as a happy ending or perhaps the making of yet another mistake. But that's how we live our lives: we want to do the right thing but we err quite often as we try.

Three stars out of five for this one.