Apocalypse Now Redux (1979/2001)

THE HORROR... THE HORROR...

Apocalypse Now is, and probably always will be, one of the most notorious, infamous and legendary films of all time. Originally intended as a faux documentary to be filmed during the Vietnam War under the direction of George Lucas, it was constantly pushed back and rewritten and revisualised until it became a surreal and engulfing story directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The production was a nightmare, with the cast being changed or struck with illness; the sets being destroyed by storms; the budget more than doubling; and the intended four-month shoot extending to almost a year and a half. Coppola became almost maniacal in his push to complete the film, which took a further two years to edit, getting its release in 1979, three years after it had begun filming. In 2001, Coppola went back to the film and released a new edit of the film, reinstating scenes dropped from the original cut, adding a further 49 minutes to the already huge 153-minute running time. This was released as Apocalypse Now Redux.

Vietnam, 1969. Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), an experienced Special Forces officer, is sent back into the jungle on a top-secret mission to find and kill renegade Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has set up his own army within the jungle. As Willard forges ahead into the jungle, he slowly descends into a state of border-line insanity brought on by his mission and the jungle itself, becoming more like the man he was sent to kill.

At the time of writing, it was perhaps only a couple of months ago that I had the good fortune to be able to see an all-new digital re-release of the original cut of Apocalypse Now on a big cinema screen. It had been years since I had seen it, and I would have kicked myself if I had missed it, particularly with the legendary sound design being played through big theatre sound. Some things genuinely do just need to be seen at least once on the big screen. The showing I went to was an early-afternoon Wednesday screening, the last in its run. When I came to two-and-a-half hours later, I was rather spaced out, walking through the streets back to my car in a mild daze, reeling from the spectacle I had just seen. I genuinely didn’t speak to anyone for around an hour and a half after the film finished. I can’t think of many ways to better describe it than that, other than perhaps this: as I sat in the theatre, which was only moderately busy, there were people around who, for one reason or another, couldn’t sit through the full running time like myself and some others could. Someone had to leave to go to the toilet, someone went to get another drink, the reasons varied. As I sat there, transfixed by the film onscreen, I did, on occasion, have my concentration broken now and then by one of those people moving from their seat. As they moved, I would glance at them, not contemptuously so, but simply because there was movement where there had been none before. My glance away from the film was momentary, less than a second, and I missed no line of dialogue nor visual metaphor. And yet, though I missed nothing of the film, for that split second of not looking at the screen… I missed looking at the screen. I was so absorbed by the action, by the visuals, by the enveloping soundtrack, that if I took myself out of it, even for a moment, I missed not being inside the atmosphere of the film. It was a comfortable bed that I was loathed to tear myself away from. Such is the strength that still remains in Apocalypse Now.

One of the truly great things about Apocalypse Now, and the 2001 re-edit Redux, is that I still can’t entirely decide if it’s one of the worst directed films ever or one of the best directed films ever. It’s ambitious, pretentious, flawed, vital, indulgent, incendiary filmmaking at its most extreme. Coppola himself says that, as the film progresses, the story itself becomes less important. He always said that it’s more of an experience than a film. There is the distinct impression that the film, at some point, ceases to be under the direction of Coppola and instead begins to direct itself, like a living entity trying explore itself in the same the way the characters in the film do. Off the top of my head, I can think of only one other film that has managed to achieve this sense that the film has come alive on its own and begun to dictate its own trajectory, beyond the control (and sometimes the understanding) of its original controller. That film is one I’ll eventually get to in this journey through my collection, but for now, I’ll keep my focus on Apocalypse Now Redux.

Most of what I already think about the original film remains intact in the light of the new material on show in Redux, despite some pretty sizable shifts in structure and flow. I’ll begin by talking about the original film, and then move onto other considerations developed by the new edit.

The original intentions of Apocalypse Now can generally be summed up with the same words that so many others, particularly film students, have used to describe their own projects – “I want to take a proper, realistic look at this, without the bullshit.  I don’t want the audience to watch it, I want them to feel it.” The Vietnam War is often described by those that were there as a truly grim and hazy experience, like a bad trip in a hostile place that never seemed to end. If this is the case, then Apocalypse Now truly is the closest thing to being there. Loosely basing itself on Joseph Conrad’s book Heart of Darkness, the film surges forward into a journey through corruption, amoral reasoning, madness and the dark soul that rests at the heart of every human being. Willard is sent to “terminate with extreme prejudice” Col. Kurtz, a brilliant soldier on his way to becoming one of the top brass in the country, because he has gone off the rails, has closed himself off from the outside world and begun to amass his own army of natives deep within Cambodia. To these less civilised people, he has become a deity, a god, an idol to whom they have given themselves over to completely. With this unwavering support, Kurtz begins fighting the war on his own terms, picking his own targets and ordering his new troops to kill them. That he seems to be getting some sort of results in his area is not the concern to the US military. To them, he has gone completely insane. Therefore, they formally charge him with murder (a notion both Kurtz and Willard find, in the context of where they are, insane) and assign Willard to kill him. On the journey, Willard reads over the numerous documents of Kurtz’s accomplishments, his multiple decorations, his many achievements, and comes to question the authority that would create such a brilliant and highly decorated soldier only to deem him mad for carrying out the duties of his command, but without their input and a ruthless efficiency that they find collectively disturbing. By the time Willard meets his intended target, his journey and his own dwindling mental state mean that he is more like Kurtz than himself.

That Kurtz is regularly alluded to as some sort of deity, and Willard’s journey towards him makes the Apocalypse Now something akin to a religious pilgrimage. People go on these types of journeys to feel closer to God, at least metaphorically. Willard’s journey is made more intense and intriguing because, not only does he know that he will have met God by the end of the trek, but it’s his job to kill him. Along the way, the more he reads of Kurtz’s exploits, both within the military and without, as well as letters from Kurtz to his family, the more Willard becomes indoctrinated into Kurtz’s way of thinking. He starts to buy into the cult of Kurtz. He begins to believe in him. The sense of the religious is scattered throughout the film at numerous instances, utilising religious iconography and imagery, both Western and Eastern, at various points to support this ideal. The whole voyage itself, often described as a descent into madness and Hell, is somewhat structured after a journey (albeit a meandering one) through the various levels of Hell suggested in Dante’s Inferno, with Willard acting as out Virgil. Willard begins in his Saigon hotel room, endlessly waiting on his next assignment – The First Circle of Limbo. As his boat sails down the river, he makes stops at regular intervals. There’s the famous helicopter blitz attack on a small village (Seventh Circle - Violence); there’s the USO show featuring three Playboy Bunnies (Second Circle - Lust); there’s stopping for mangoes, with Chef discussing food, before being chased away by a tiger (Third Circle – Gluttony, with the tiger acting as Cerberus). There’s even a possible allusion to the eternal torment of Greek character Sisyphus, who was condemned to spend eternity pushing a boulder to the top of a hill only to watch it roll back down and have to repeat the task forever. This point can be found in the scene where Willard’s boat happens upon a US Army outpost at a bridge with no commanding officer, which is under constant attack from Vietnamese troops. The US keeps trying to build the bridge; the enemy keeps destroying it. Kurtz’s appearance of a fat bald man (though much to the intense displeasure of director Coppola) actually extends this Eastern deity idea, making him look like some darkly perverted image of Buddha. And the final 15 minutes are a work of brutal ritual, figurative and literal.

The main sequences remain as big and powerful as always. The opening scene with Willard is still a supremely evocative sequence, stirring up the beginnings of the dark hysteria and tragedy that the rest of the film will build on. From the moment Lt. Col. Kilgore, played with a vigorous bravado by Robert Duvall, shows up, the whole film seems to run on a more intense heat, almost like the character makes the film itself stand more at attention. The helicopter attack on the village and school are masterworks of editing, of music, of frankly epic sound design. The Sisyphean bridge scene is something of a deliberate eeriness and shell-shocked horror, scattered with examples of aimless aggression and paranoia. Particularly disquieting is the unblinking soldier who blows up the remains of a Vietnamese squad hiding in the jungle, judging the aim and distance by ear, with an almost supernatural calm.

Kurtz’s compound of death is also still deeply unnerving, decorated with heads, skulls, corpses and words scrawled onto a wall – “OUR MOTTO: APOCALYPSE NOW”. Dennis Hopper’s jittery and intense photojournalist is a rather unsettling presence, but mainly because he’s such enthusiastic believer in Kurtz and his doctrine. He’s a fanatic. He really believes the man is a genius, a god, because when he says things, he has the strength and will to carry them out. As he tells Willard:

Photojournalist: I wish I had words, man. I wish I had words... I can tell ya

something like the other day he wanted to kill me. Somethin’ like that...

Willard: Why’d he wanna kill you?

Photojournalist: Because I took his picture. He said “If you take my picture

again, I'm gonna kill you.” And he meant it.

That he delivers that last line with more than a little awe, as if he’s honoured he should be so regarded by Kurtz, is unsettling.

Many people find the scenes with Brando to be the point where the film wanders too far, goes off the rails too much. Honestly, I disagree. I think it left the rails long before. Now the journey has come to an end and therefore Willard must finally come to make his choice… kill the man, or join him. Brando, for all of his weird dialogue (most of which he made up) and his grotesque appearance, is still a forceful and imposing presence in the film. There’s no doubting that this rambling maniac is capable of doing these terrible things, but there’s equally no doubting that he could inspire the following to do it. Brando has always been possessed of great charisma, indeed that’s why he became the idol to so many in real life. And that’s just exactly what cult leaders need – presence, charisma, the ability to command an audience’s attention. And the way he delivers the monologue about the enemy soldiers that inspired Kurtz to become what he is is still remarkably chilling, made more so because it’s somewhat understandable. That’s what makes Kurtz really horrifying, that he arrived at his mania with a logical clarity that’s difficult to deny.

The new changes made to the film in the Redux cut are mostly small ones, but feature two pretty large additions to the story. One is a return of the Playboy Bunnies from the USO show who had to leave quickly in their helicopter after the audience got too rowdy and started to storm the stage. Willard’s boat comes across a mostly abandoned medevac site that the Bunnies’ helicopter landed. Here, Willard trades two barrels of fuel so the other men on the boat can have one hour with two of them. The girls are now as druggy as most of the soldiers in the film (one absently talking about birds; the other how she feels more like a plaything than a person), so they seem completely unaware that they are being undressed and positioned. It’s a rather unsettling addition, furthering the impression that anyone lost in this morass will become instantly corrupted, be they soldier or civilian.

The other main addition is the French plantation scene, where Willard and his fellow travellers happen upon a plantation run by a French family and protected by French soldiers. This is a far more surreal sequence. Welcomed by the owners, the American soldiers are brought in and cleaned up, fed a proper meal in a very expensive and well-kept house. The family discuss politics and history, with things becoming more heated amongst themselves when Willard asks when they plan on returning to France, given the war that rages around them. They say that they shall never leave, because this is their home, this is their land. For the whole scene, we remain as well informed on the discussion as Willard, which is to say, not very. We get no subtitles to tell us what they say amongst each other, with only some of the conversation being in English and directed at Willard. When people begin seriously disagreeing, leaving the table, sometimes in tears, it’s rather awkward, for us and for Willard. Willard is eventually left at the table with a young woman, who never said a word during dinner. The two eventually go off, smoke some opium, and she tells him, “There are two of you, can’t you see? One that kills, and one that loves,” thus echoing this continued sense of moral duality in the piece. As it is, this particular sequence is one I’m inclined to say isn’t real, that it exists in a peculiar fantasy world, one into which Willard retreats for a sense of perspective. It’s not even just because the scene is bookended by a thick white mist, but because this whole sequence has such a different feel about it. It feels antiquated, outside of the rest of the film. Even the music suggests a period some forty years prior.

Overall, Apocalypse Now is still a film of immense power, liable to leave most people a bit punch-drunk after seeing it, though in the best possible way. The Redux version is one of the few films that has been served better from its reconstitution of old scenes. It’s still the dark, chaotic, living film as before, but now with extra moments of surreal vision, of bleak pontificating, of genuine emotional power. The original cut is still not an inferior one by comparison; it just serves to have its points made a bit better in the newer cut.

Amélie (2001)

ONE PERSON CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOREVER

Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet had been collecting things since 1974. Anything really. Stories, images, memories, impressions, people. He filled notebooks with things that he found interesting or worth remembering. It would seem he never really found any particular endgame in his collecting, at least not a specific enough one to be able to quantify his endeavours. It was, for all intents and purposes, just his hobby. When he eventually became a filmmaker, he would have continued picking up these scraps of life around him, likely dipping into them for ideas or inspiration. However, in 2001, his hobby would give him what is quite possibly his masterpiece. A fantasy about love and joy centred on a young woman named Amélie Poulain.

Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou), an innocent and naïve young waitress living in Paris, decides to help those around her rediscover the joy their lives as a way of making herself happier. However, she does find it difficult to find real joy for herself, until she (sort of) meets a young man named Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz).

The script for Amélie was written by Guillaume Laurant, based on a story by both Laurant and Jeunet. The two had previously worked on The City of Lost Children to pretty decent results, so when Jeunet finally decided to tackle those notebooks filled with the odds and ends of existence that he had amassed over all those years, it was Laurant that he enlisted to help him. The script itself is at once beautifully detailed and also rather scattergun. There is, for the longest time, little in the way of an actual story. It’s really more a collection of characters, stationed in various settings, with Amélie as the one connection that runs through them all. Things happen to them, either by the machinations of Fate or of Amélie herself, but there isn’t really an overall arc for it all. It’s okay, because it’s really more about what this random gaggle of misfits and oddballs get from each other if only they would look up once in a while. There are moments of grand absurdity, and even some glimpses at a rather dark humour, but it’s all taken as part of a widespread fantasy. Given the importance of the characters in the film, they each shine wonderfully. Even if they’ve only been given the slightest tick or affect, it is built on beautifully. There is a point being made about what you can understand about a person from only the briefest glimpses, and the importance of trying. Nino becomes obsessed with a particular man in his photo collection, and longs to understand what his story is. Amélie’s neighbour, Dufayel, paints the same picture (Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party) over and over again, but always has difficulty with the one girl whose face is mostly obscured by a glass. As such, he considers her his greatest challenge. In this world, people who try to understand more about those around them are the ones worth listening to. When there is a story to look at - Amélie’s infatuation with and pursuit of Nino - it’s so incredibly charming that you almost can’t help but go along with it.

Jeunet, a great visualist, creates for the film a vibrant sense of colour and atmosphere. Wanting to ape the look of Brazilian artist Juarez Machado, Jeunet and cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel bring an appropriately painterly look to everything. So much so that you could pick almost any random frame from the film and hang it on your wall. Giving the fantastically striking nature of the Paris on show, every scene is composed and rendered in complementary colours, with reds in greens and yellows in blues. This is a world that is so alive and vivacious that it’s almost cartoonish. Some may feel like it’s a bit much, but there is no denying the sheer vitality of what’s on screen.

Yann Tiersen’s music is equally infectious. It’s minimalist, it’s absurd, it’s memorable, it’s unique, it’s versatile, and it’s an unmitigated delight. It never overpowers the picture, but enhances it to a splendid degree. Even as I’ve been sitting here writing this, the music is running through my head.

Performances throughout are solid. No one fails to make an impression. This is partially due to the slightly over-the-top pitch of the film that the actors must live up to, but they do so without any trouble. They all own such a distinctive look, they speak and move in such a unique way that, cartoonish broad strokes or no, these people are alive. However, this is Amélie’s film and Audrey Tautou is its beating heart. Tautou is absolutely adorable, capturing that child-like nature and slight emotional reserve of the character superbly. She always looks like she’s just barely keeping a secret, like she knows that it’s all a film and is trying not to let all the other characters in on the joke, thus keeping it going that little bit longer. It’s this kind of playful nature that rests at the core of Amélie. She’s not embarrassed or troubled by what’s happening… it’s just all part of the game she’s playing with everyone else and she wants it to go on for as long as possible.

What is perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of Amélie is that the film is not really Amélie’s fantasy, but director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s. Here, he has, in some way, created a wonderful relationship for himself, or at least a fictionalised version of himself. Amélie’s love story is, by equal measure, the love story of Nino, played by Mathieu Kassovitz, who is also a filmmaker. Let us consider Nino as the filmic surrogate for Jeunet. The filmmaker connection is obvious, but look closer at Nino. Like Jeunet, Nino keeps a scrapbook of the things that people throw away, in this case the unwanted, torn-up photos from photo booths. If this is true, Amélie can be considered as the story of a pretty young women, full of joy, coming to love and appreciate the filmmaker for all his quirks and oddball habits. It’s not really a vanity project. After all, Amélie is a simple girl, and just as weird as he is. It’s more of an act of mercy to his younger self. Nino’s relationships don’t last long, probably because he’s a bit strange. Jeunet himself might have had relationship woes growing up because he himself was a bit strange. Today, Jeunet is married and a world famous filmmaker, but there does still exist in his memory the image of himself as a somewhat lonely young man, looking for companionship in the world. The reason Amélie exists in such a fantasy world, and in fact seems to be the only one aware that she’s in a film, is because she is there as an agent of Jeunet’s psyche, there to bring hope and happiness to the young man who wants nothing more than to have someone who understands him.

I’ll be honest… the first time I watched Amélie, I wasn’t convinced. I thought it was a little too quirky, too precious, too saccharine, too fantastically naïve to really connect. The fact that it was so lauded with praise only served to baffle me further. This is not the first time this has happened to me with a film. Both Taxi Driver and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford got the same reaction. By film’s end, I could appreciate the technique and understand it all, but I just couldn’t say I felt it. It was only when I realised that I was still thinking about Amélie days after seeing it that it sank in. The same goes for those other two, which I now count amongst my favourite films. The next time I saw Amélie, it was a different story. I got it. I felt it. There are still some things I still don’t quite buy into, but the rest of the film is more than enough to make up for this.

If you haven’t seen Amélie, then I would certainly recommend it. I would perhaps be prepared to give it two shows, if you’re anything like the moderately hard-hearted person I am. However, you may be lucky enough to get it on the first go. Amélie is a truly lovely film, rich in atmosphere, colour and such a sense of (yes, I’m going to say it) joie de vivre. Plus, if it convinces a couple of people to be nicer in the world, then I’d consider that a success.

Albino Alligator (1996)

DELIBERATE SACRIFICE FOR DELIBERATE GAIN

“They don’t make ‘em like they used to.” We’ve all heard that one before. It tends to get thrown around by those of the older generation who find themselves at a loss with the current standard of film or music or whatever the subject happens to be. It’s understandable to a degree. People tend to regard the past with more fondness than the present. However, times change, and standards change. What was unacceptable before is acceptable now, and vice versa. The most commonly repeated complaint is that, in movies, there’s less emphasis now on character or story, and more emphasis on special effects and the onomatopoeic thrills of booms and bangs. Every now and then, though, someone will attempt to address this idea. They’ll try and make something that feels old-fashioned. A character piece, or something suitably low-key that special effects can’t enter into. Such was the attempt made by actor Kevin Spacey with his directorial debut of Albino Alligator.

While escaping from a foiled robbery attempt, three thieves - Dova (Matt Dillon), Milo (Gary Sinise) and Law (William Fichtner) - try to hide out from the police in a basement bar. When they find themselves surrounded, they take the few patrons of the bar hostage and try to figure out a plan.

Albino Alligator is the first script from Christian Forte and, frankly, it is a poor start to proceedings. The basic premise is simple enough to allow character to be the most important aspect of the film. It’s not about cops or thieves or hostages - it’s a morality play. Morality plays rest on the simple conceit of what one person is being forced to do against everything they know about themselves and what they know to be right. For this to work, you need strong characters… and Albino Alligator has little in the way of strong characters. People here aren’t people, but conveniences for plot. If they aren’t being dealt with directly by the scene, they are completely forgotten. There are some attempts to give a hint of background story to some, like Jack’s potential drinking problem or Dova’s relationship woes, but they don’t work because they exist only as throwaway lines that get no further attention or development. The drama of the whole is also severely compromised by the frequent attempts at humour, which come out of nowhere and then leave just as quickly. The script just simply is not up to the challenge of what is a good central concept.

Considering the genuine anticipation behind what would be Kevin Spacey’s first film as director, there was quite a lot of expectation for Albino Alligator. In concept, it’s a good choice. It’s mainly single set, a handful of actors, little in the way of chase sequences or explosions, a high-tension morality play. This is the kind of thing people should be starting with, where they can build their skills in simply creating tension, mood, tone. With a solid script behind it and some great actors, this could really be something. Spacey even made a wise move and called veteran director Sidney Lumet to get tips on how to create a greater sense of claustrophobic tension similar to Lumet’s excellent 12 Angry Men. Sadly, it falls short of its intended target by some way. With exception of a single overhead shot of a car crash near the beginning, there is little in the way of real style or dramatic weight. Also, the camerawork is never still long enough to build tension. Any tips that Lumet may have given Spacey must have gone unheeded for some reason, because there is simply no sense of claustrophobia anywhere. The space feels empty, the frame feels empty. People have room to walk around, get away from each other. That Spacey allowed the film to occasionally leave the bar is an even more serious misstep. By leaving the bar for ham-fisted attempts at humour or to give information that is pretty meaningless, it gives the audience the chance to catch their breath. Spacey should be given some credit for the fact that it doesn’t feel stagey, which could have happened and he was probably quite conscious of, but that doesn’t really make up for things.

The cast, filled with some superb talent, are wasted or cast adrift with a rather disturbing frequency. Matt Dillon is the character we spend most time with, and Dova is of the sort that’s smart enough to know that he needs a plan, just not smart enough to think of one. Dillon is a little unsteady in the beginning, and does struggle with the attempts at humour, but does eventually find his feet. Gary Sinise does solid work, but he spends some of the film unconscious, so we don’t get much of him. William Fichtner is the strongest actor on show, completely becoming the kind of barely contained psychopath that serves to make up around 80% of the movie’s tension. The scene where he demands that Faye Dunaway take out a cigarette and put in his mouth is really imposing and creepy, and he's easily the most physical presence in the film. Faye Dunaway herself doesn’t come off too well. She has moments where she hits her stride wonderfully, but for the most part struggles to find the tone of the piece and so seems a little inconsistent. Pretty much everyone else is criminally wasted and underused, from Viggo Mortensen’s Quiet Guy Drinking Off-screen to John Spencer’s Slightly Less Quiet Guy Drinking Off-screen to Joe Mantegna’s Cop Standing Outside A Lot. Mantegna tries to give a little depth here and there, and Mortensen tries to give something too, but Spencer is almost completely ignored, which is shocking. They just don’t know what to do with him.

As it is, Albino Alligator is a thoroughly wasted opportunity. The cast try their best, with varying degrees of success, but the script is wrought with problems and the direction is unsteady and with little tonal consistency. The fact that there is a conscious attempt to make things feel old-fashioned serves to both cheapen the memory of the old stuff and cripple the credibility of this film. This could have been something of real simmering tension, atmosphere and moral ambiguity, but it simply doesn’t hold up.

Adventureland (2009)

IT WAS THE WORST JOB THEY EVER IMAGINED... AND THE BEST TIME OF THEIR LIVES

Coming-of-age stories – something we can all relate to, I suppose. Many have already done it and many are in the process as we speak… but when does it actually happen? At what point can you officially say that you are “of age” in that awkward, moderately existential kind of way? Is it defined by a single act? Does it happen when you have reached a certain age? Or is it something a bit more profound than that? In a manner of addressing such questions, Greg Mottola delves into his time as a young adult working at an amusement park to bring us the nostalgic period comedy Adventureland.

It’s 1987 and James (Jesse Eisenberg) has just graduated high school and is all set to make a trek around Europe during the summer before college starts. However, his parents have hit rough times, so he has to get a job to pay for school himself. He ends up taking a summer job at the rundown local amusement park, where he meets all kinds of new people, including Em (Kristen Stewart).

Though he had been working as a director for a while, mostly in the world of television, his career was given a major boost in 2007 from the comedy hit Superbad. More associated with the rise and rise of Judd Apatow, Mottola still managed to capture a nice retro feel to the picture, drawing from it the mild haze of a 70s high school comedy that had become kitsch, not to mention a genuine sense of minor epiphany. With a bona fide hit to his name, Mottola was given the chance to make his follow up, another coming-of-age tale based partly on his experiences of working in an old amusement park, which he wrote himself.

Mottola’s hand over Adventureland is firm, but casts itself with subtlety. Given its 80s period setting, the expectation is to over-saturate the film with gimmicky nods to the time, a la The Wedding Singer. It works great there, but Mottola takes this story more seriously. Considering that he probably knew the people that are the basis for these characters, he doesn’t want to cheapen them with easily identifiable stereotypes or comedic broad strokes. The temporal references are not shoved in your face, which gives the whole the feeling not just of a time remembered fondly, but of a time remembered honestly. The only real exception would be the character of Frigo, but he is the one trapped in the times, refusing to grow out of his juvenile ways. And yes, there are ventures into some horrible Day-Glo discos of the time, but that’s what they had back then. Some memories are true.

Jesse Eisenberg is one of those actors that, in everything I’ve seen him in, has never let me down. Here, he is as solid in this as he always is. His particular brand of understated acting suits the material well, all gawky intellectual charm. He’s rarely one for big movements, preferring to convey everything in his eyes. Watching how his eyes flit from left to right, or how he looks awkwardly around, or even when he just stops and stares. He almost doesn’t need to do anything else, but he still backs it up with a great line of head tilts and arched eyebrows and smirks and a sporadic… way of speak-uh, of speaking. He gets the initial frustration of being there, but also the resigned malaise of knowing he’s stuck there, and then he perks up as things get more interesting. The boy’s got some skills.

I had almost forgotten how good an actress Kristen Stewart actually is before I saw this movie for the first time. She’s way more known for her work in the Twilight movies, and so it’s easy to forget that she’s done other stuff. Adventureland kind of reminds you of what she can actually do, given the chance and some decent material. It’s perhaps also easy to dismiss her performance here as too like her performance in Twilight. It’s true that there are some similarities, but they’re slight ones. Both Em and Bella are needy and torn, but Em is so much more than that. Bella is flaky, whiny and, frankly, a pain in the ass; Em has more depth, so you can actually see the conflict sitting under her skin. Em is at a loss in herself, but still needs comfort and contact, so she makes bad decisions, and she hates herself for that, which makes her feel worse. She also got character and strength, standing up to stranger and friend alike for things she disagrees with. Bella is a poorly drawn caricature; Em is an actual person, damaged but real.

Ryan Reynolds initially feels like an odd casting choice, given the fairly small role he’s in, but therein lies the point. Reynolds is a much bigger star than this, so he’s expected to be doing better, but that’s exactly what is at the heart of Connell. With his good looks and easy cool, he probably thought he’d be bigger in life, making a killing with his band. As it is, things didn’t work out for him, and now he’s the park’s (apparently only) maintenance guy, a walking symbol for dreams unfulfilled. However, he’s deeper than that, too. He’s come to terms with this, instead using this aura of cool to score with the prettier girls who work in the park, despite being married. He’s a dick who takes advantage, but strangely you don’t entirely hate him, either.

There’s great support from the rest of the cast, too. Martin Starr’s Joel is the very embodiment of personal social awareness. He knows his smoking a pipe is disgusting, he knows his education is of little real world value (Russian literature and Slavic languages), and he knows a moderately trained monkey could do his job, but he accepts his lot with a deadpan fatalism that just makes him better to watch. You kind of feel that someone like him should be annoying, but he’s really quite likable. Everyone should have a friend like Joel. Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig also do a great turn as the couple that run the park, although Hader gets the much showier role.

There’s also a rather wistful element to Adventureland, which helps to maintain that nostalgia factor, and it’s not entirely because they use the bittersweet pop mainstay of 80s soul-searching montages, Crowded House’s ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’. We enter into things with the knowledge that this job is temporary, a summer thing, something to endure before James heads off to college and begins his life for real. As time goes on and friendships are made and broken, feelings are exposed and hurt, when you come to the end of the summer, it feels like something more significant has ended with it. It’s the same kind of feeling many had when they left high school, that it may be the last time you see any of these people again and the world seems a little bit bigger. Clearly, James and his ilk didn’t really have that feeling when they left school, too busy planning the next step in their lives to notice their here and now. It’s only when the plan stalls and they’re forced to stand still and watch things go by that they notice what life really looks like.

Perhaps that’s what Adventureland is saying it means to “come of age.” It’s not defined by an act, like the first time you have sex, and it’s not defined by an event, like school graduation. It’s defined by the moment you realise that the world is much bigger than you and your plans. All you can hope for is to make the most of what you get, and if you can find someone or something that helps make the passing of time better, then it’s down to you to make the leap and hold onto it. When John Lennon sang, “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,” he pinpointed where that slight internal ache, that pulling, comes from - knowing that you’ve lost something you can’t get back because you were too busy looking elsewhere. It’s not that you won’t ever be happy, not at all, but it’s something that never quite goes away, and all you can do is think back to the time when you had such potential and wonder ‘what if?’

Adventureland is a low-key, but still rather sweet and charming film. Less concerned with the bigger, more outlandish laughs of Superbad, it spends more time concentrating on the drama between characters and tentative connections they make over a period of time they know is fleeting. It’s still got some laughs to it, but they are pretty subtle and far between. Really more drama than comedy, but worth it for a rather affecting and nostalgic story of growing up.