Adventureland

I’m not really a big slapstick movie fan. I don’t much like gutter humor and making me feel dumber than I already am doesn’t do much for my sense of humor. So when I first saw the previews for Adventureland, I almost immediately discounted it thinking it wouldn’t be anything I’d be interested in. And then I saw that Ryan Reynolds was in it. Damnit!! I love that guy. I’ve had mad love for him since Two Guys, a Girl, and A Pizza Place when he was Berg way back in the day (funny aside, before I met my husband I wanted my boyfriend to be a combination of one half Berg and one half Niles from Frasier). He’s got instinctual comedic timing and is just so very, very pretty.

When the movie came out it got some really good reviews. And one of my favorite bloggers really loved it. So I figured what the heck and we watched it tonight.

Of all the ways I could figure out how to describe it, I think I’d have to go with sweet. It’s just such a sweet, sweet movie. There are a few attempts at American Pie-ish gutter humor, but feeble ones at best so they are forgiven. But mostly it’s smart and sweet and actually really fun to see Kristen Stewart just be in a character instead of infusing it with so much angst. And Jesse Eisenberg is one of my new favorite actors (although I’m fairly sure I’m old enough to be his mother). He’s so understated and honest. Netflix tells me he was also in The Squid and The Whale, but I wasn’t a big fan of that one so I probably just blocked him out with the rest of it.

There just aren’t very many movies these days (it seems at least) that are so thoroughly sweet and romantic in such an honest and raw way. Without all the stickiness and silliness that get attached to hide the vulnerability that comes with just laying it all out on the table. And there is something utterly refreshing about a movie willing to leave it all out there, painting a picture of first love.