This article we wrote originally ran on MTV’s Movie’s blog, but has since disappeared for some reason, so we’re keeping it here for posterity.
Like all bright ideas, Greg Mottola inadvertently conceived his upcoming film, “Adventureland” (April 3) while intoxicated with friends. Friends who would go on to be bigger parts of his life later too – the crew of Judd Apatow’s ill-fated, 2002 TV series “Undeclared.” Years later Mottola would obviously go on to direct a little Apatow-sponsored comedy called, “Superbad.”
“We were having that drunken, ‘worst job you’ve ever had,’ type conversation, myself and a lot of writers on ‘Undeclared’,” Mottola recalled, noting that one of them was a young, then-unknown scribe named Nick Stoller (he would eventually direct, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” and the upcoming Apatow-endorsed, “Get Me To The Greek”).
“I started talking about working on at an amusement park one summer on Long Island and one person, said, ‘Those stories are funny and you should write that stuff.’ and I thought ‘that’s kinda the perfect story for my first love tale.'”
The movie turned into “Adventureland,” his upcoming dramatic comedy starring an excellent cast of Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, Jesse Eisenberg (“Squid & The Whale”), Martin Starr, (“Knocked-Up” and a general Apatow troupe member), and Saturday Night Live’s Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig. Some are calling it a coming of age film, others would love it to be ‘Superbad 2,’ but Mottola notes the nuanced tale of many emotional and humorous stripes is more than one compartmentalized convenient label. Notice he called it “my first love tale.”
“I guess it gets labeled a coming of age movie, but I’m not really sure what a coming of age story is exactly,” Mottola said. “Besides it being a catch all. Better than straight comedy I suppose, cause that’s not what it is.”
Based on his own experiences working a dead-end summer job in Long Island, Eisenberg stars as a similar surrogate who has to forgo his dream trip to Europe because his parents can longer afford to help him out financially. Stuck in the suburbs, he begrudgingly takes a job at local Adventureland amusement park and soon falls for the mysterious and elusive Em, played by Kristen Stewart.
“Adventureland” is comedic, but it also displays the serious underpinnings about the vulnerabilities of opening yourself to love. Or, as Mottola put it, “It’s the first real intimacy [Jessie Eisenberg’s character] is allowing into his life, [Kristen’s] character is complicated and moody, and that’s some scary sh*t.”
The filmmaker and writer, who counts Woody Allen’s blend of the comically bittersweet as one of his favorite movie flavors, says he also learned from Judd Apatow working on “Undeclared” where the two bonded over their similar and character-sympathetic sensibilities.
“[Judd’s] the type of guy [who] would throw away really, really funny jokes because they stepped on the scene or an emotion in the story,” he said, noting how difficult it is for comedians to discard jokes they know will score an ace laugh. “But Judd’s one of those people that has that discipline, he gets that. He’s very true to his heroes, like James L. Brooks and [that type of storytelling] feels richer to me.”
Set in the mid-1980 when the filmmaker grew up, the excellent soundtrack features an achingly tasteful mixtape of ’80s college rock classics, plus a few humorous uses of mainstream pop like Falco’s “Amadeus,” which becomes an amusing and repetitive theme in the film that drives the characters nuts.
The soundtrack also features, The Cure, The Replacements, The Velvet Underground, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Husker Du, a score by indie rockers Yo La Tengo and many, many more choice cuts. Suffice it to say, music was vital, even from the earliest of stages. “I really thought about the script and story as a pop love song brought to life,” he said, noting how each character has a sound. “Kristen’s character listens to punk stuff like the New York Dolls and she’s a little harder edged. Jesse’s character is a little bit more 1980s emo, but f**k it, I’m a little emo,” he laughed.
“I just remember how incessantly everyone would soundtrack their lives. it was a survival mechanism. You had your music and you played it wherever you went and it was a way to push out the horrifying silence of teenage suburban living. “
“Adventureland” plays at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas this weekend and opens up in theaters on April 3.