Filmmaker Greg Mottola once again tells the story of an awkward young man that through eventful circumstances over the course of a brief period of time discovers some measure of meaning in his life through friendship and love. But Adventureland is no Superbad, although they both have phonetically similar sounding names outside of their subject matter. More sombre and less focused on gags and gross outs then the Judd Apatow hit from a few summers ago, Adventureland is really more Say Anything… than American Pie, which to my mind makes it stick out the more than other recent movies about young people.

We meet young James (Jesse Eisenberg). James is about to embark on a fabulous European vacation with his rich buddy from college when his parents tell him that not only can they not afford to help him on his way to Europe, the can’t completely sign off on his grad school cheque to Columbia due to financial considerations. So James does what so many of us in the dregs have had to before him, and get a job in order to pay for higher education. Sadly (for James, not the audience), the only thing he’s qualified to do is work the games as a carnie at the amusement park Adventureland. But what begins as a fiscal karma kick to the butt, begets an experience James won’t soon forget.

As far as plot synopsis go, it’s pretty hackneyed, pretty standard. If Adventureland sounds like something you’ve seen before, that’s okay because as we all learned from Martha Stewart, it’s presentation that counts. What I like about Adventureland is that nothing comes easy for the characters, and they themselves never felt like any kind of stooge or stand-in for a tired and clichéd comedic archetype. Well, James seemed a bit too whiny and self-involved for my taste, but that never seemed to prevent me from sympathizing with him. As a character, he is rather harmless after all with a lot of his belligerence due to the fact that he’s rather naïve more than anything else.

But Eisenberg’s James turns out to be only one, albeit substantial, piece of the puzzle that is Adventureland. Providing great support are SNL vets Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as the husband/wife team that runs the amusement park. Their performances, at least on the surface, don’t seem like much beyond the normal odd ball range, but the two of them really made you wonder what was going on beneath their daffy calm. Regardless, they always win a smile or a laugh from the audience when they’re on screen. On the flip side is Ryan Reynolds, who gets a little darker than we usually see, but playing the former cool kid/current creep kind of fits if him in a scary kind of way.

But the real surprise of Adventureland is how toned down it seems. The trailer did a good job of re-cutting the film to look a little more on the zany side of things, but really this is a kind of “grey comedy” as in it’s not quite light but it’s not really a black comedy either. This one is patient, it likes to take time and set up its situational humour and it feels far more personal than Superbad or other movies made in its mould. As an unexpected bonus, it’s got heart and if not a happy ending, than at least a promising ending. The real treasure in Adventureland isn’t in one-off jokes anyway, but it’s in the journey. It’s one of those movies where you feel like the characters have learned something and have grown a little. And yes, we had a few laughs on the way too. Bonus.