Adventureland

Greg Mottola wrote as well as directed, and drops a graduate whose European summer has collapsed behind a games stall at a Pittsburgh amusement park in 1987, saving for graduate school. Mottola worked at the Adventureland park on Long Island as a teenager, which is where the name comes from. The shoot took place at Kennywood outside Pittsburgh, and the park was heavily dressed down to look shabby. The real difficulty was the calendar: the story runs across high summer, but filming happened in winter. For interior takes, extras were paid to stand outside the doors and windows so the falling snow would not show behind the actors. The music is doing work. 41 songs were licensed, and Falco’s Rock Me Amadeus comes over the park speakers often enough to wear the staff down, which is the joke. In earlier drafts the musician the maintenance man claims to have jammed with was not Lou Reed but Neil Young, with two Young songs carrying key scenes. The film played Sundance and was nominated for best ensemble cast at the Gotham awards. A good fit if you want a summer of waiting, class difference and minimum wage boredom rather than gags. Not for anyone expecting the loud teen comedy the trailer promised, because the film is deliberately quieter.