Review of Adventureland (2009) by Lucas Eduardo B — 11 Apr 2012
It's very very rare that I come across a film that makes me this violently angry. This movie is distinctively about young people doing dumb things, shifting responsibility off on anyone but themselves and thinking they're entitled to everything, feasible or otherwise.
They're the type of young people that work a shitty job all day and go home to get drunk and smoke pot, and for some reason the filmmaker seems to think I should have sympathy for them when this lifestyle leads to shitty consequences.
When a kid gets drunk and destroys his parents car, I don't really feel for him when it takes all his money to fix it, and now he can't go on to grad school. But the movie wants me to. I don't feel for the girl who blindly hates her stepmother for no other reason than her own ineptitude.
When you smoke pot all day and you work at a theme park, your parent asking you what you want to do with your life is a reasonable question. So I can't feel for her seething hate. But the movie wants me to.
When the main character decides to go to New York anyway, despite not having any money at all and no foreseeable plan, I can't feel for him. Because he's being illogical and ridiculous, and he can't get what he wants in life if he hasn't earned it.
But the movie wants me to feel for him. The filmmaker seems to think that I should like these people just because he says so. He makes no good reason for their actions, and he doesn't condemn a single stupid thing that they do.
These people are selfish beings who don't care who they have to hurt in order to learn something or follow their impossible dreams, and I'm supposed to cheer this on? I can usually ignore things like this if a movie presents humor or something distracting from it, but this doesn't.
What it sets out to do is make you empathize with these people and feel nostalgia for your own youth, but it fails, and wastes a whole lot of talent on its way down the drain. I truly hated this empty, RIDICULOUSLY overrated movie.
This review of Adventureland (2009) was written by Lucas Eduardo B on 11 Apr 2012.
Adventureland has generally received positive reviews.
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