When the Velvet Underground’s “Here She Comes Now” started playing during Adventureland, I perked up. I thought, “Here is a smart movie, one aware of Lou Reed’s darkly soulful lyrics. When I realized that my favorite Velvet Underground song, “Pale Blue Eyes,” was going to underscore this tale of young 20-something romance, a smile appeared on my face and never left.
“Sometimes I feel so happy/ Sometimes I feel so sad/ Sometimes I feel so happy/ But mostly you just make me mad…Linger on your pale blue eyes.”
Adventureland follows the up-and-down romance between James (Jesse Eisenberg) and Em (Kristen Stewart) who work together at a Pittsburgh amusement park during the Summer of ‘87. When they first meet, he’s working a horse-race game, giving his best effort to make the sad affair feel like the Kentucky Derby, handing out stuffed animals to the winners. She watches, amused, attracted. From the first moment James catches Em’s arresting eyes, he’s smitten.
I first noticed Eisenberg last year in the sadly over-looked The Squid and the Whale. Here, he plays a kissing cousin to that film’s well-educated, literary-minded young man, short on girl knowledge, long on familiarity with Moby Dick, and struggling to find a place in the world in spite of both.
I only knew Kristen Stewart -– like most everyone –- from Twilight. Em is a much richer character for her. Where Bella suffered from a poverty of problems and conflicts, Em has a surplus. She hates her step-mom. She is having an affair with the amusement park’s mechanic, Mike (Ryan Reynolds), a married man. And there’s unspecified other pain, hidden behind her Lou Reed t-shirt, signified by David Bowie’s “Aladdin Sane” poster on her bedroom wall.
Unimpressed by Twilight, I’m now a member of the Stewart fan club. Her work with Eisenberg is casual, warm, natural, and understatedly sexy. We understand their relationship in that “we want every moment to last forever but we can’t wait to get to the next” sort of way. When she drives him home and he sits sideways in his seat –- unable to take his eyes off of her –- and “Pale Blue Eyes” is softly playing, we are as anxious to find a quiet place to share their first kiss as they are.
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