The summer of 1987 should have been the best of James Brennan's life. The earnest, poetry-reading, embarrassingly virginal fresh college grad was supposed to be traveling Europe before starting grad school. But money troubles force him home to Pittsburgh, where the only job he can get is working at a low-rent amusement park.

The park, with its fixed ring toss games and chintzy rides, is a great setting with a built-in cast of misfits. There's Em (Kristen Stewart, sulking again), a pretty, troubled Lou Reed fan acting out against her parents, and Connell (Ryan Reynolds), a sleazy married ride mechanic who hooks up with young girls in his mom's basement. SNL's Bill Hader and the ubiquitous (and working on overrated) Kristen Wiig spill over the top as the couple who run the park, but most of the other characters and jokes, for all their silliness, are believable.

There's James' childhood friend Frigo, who still thinks a kick in the nuts is high comedy, and Lisa P., the park sex object who ends up being a virgin too. James' friend Joel is played by Martin Starr, the really geeky geek from Freaks and Geeks (of which Adventureland could be a kind of extended dance remix; or maybe it's a Say Anything spin-off, set in Pittsburgh, with a hint of The Last American Virgin).

James (played by Jesse Eisenberg) is honest, romantic, a nice guy to a fault, and when he falls for Em, who's wrapped up in her own complications, she pushes him away. The push and pull and the parties and the betrayals ring true, and even smaller characters get moments that feel real. The dialogue can be wordy, but it works; it's not done in that tortured Juno way, but how poetry nerds and Slavic language majors might actually talk.

The era's done just right, spot-on but left in the background, never the joke itself. It's got the bangs and the acid wash and the stripey muscle shirts, and a great mix of music, from the Replacements to Whitesnake to Falco, on repeat, forever. Even some of the jokes feel like they came from those old '80s high school movies, like swimming pool boners and being high at dinner with your parents.

Oddly, that makes things feel vaguely out of synch; it really feels like a high school movie, but the characters are college aged or older (Stewart, who was just 17 when the movie filmed, was playing 21). It just feels wrong, and ends up throwing things off.

In the end, moviegoers were confused by the advertising, which played up the gags and writer/director Greg Mottola's previous gig directing Superbad. Yes, there are pot cookies; yes, Frigo hits James in the nuts a dozen times. But the story is about first love and the confusion and complications that come with it. As long as you know that going in, you'll find a good movie with a strong script and solid performances, a date-night winner with a few laugh-out-loud jokes.

The DVD extras are slim, just three short deleted scenes, a 16-minute making-of documentary, and audio commentary by Eisenberg and Mottola. But it's a simple movie, not the kind that lends itself to bloated extra discs. Think of it as a Tunnel of Love through the days of Poison, yuppie scum, and awful first jobs, and just be glad you don't have to stay there.

Adventureland is available now from Miramax.

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