I've been excited to see Adventureland since I first saw the trailer over Christmas. Partly it's because of its connections to the Judd Apatow empire: written and directed by Greg Mottola of Superbad, with a major supporting role for Freaks and Geeks alum Martin Starr. I'm also a fan of the star, Jesse Eisenberg, who was great in The Squid and the Whale and here plays the same kind of clueless, affected intellectual as he did in that film. But mostly I just knew Adventureland would play to one of my strongest sensibilities: my love of my summer job.
I started working at Showplace 16, the movie theater in my Illinois hometown, just before finishing high school. I needed something to do in the months between graduation and leaving for Minnesota, and like the main character in the movie, I saw my minimum-wage position at Showplace as transitional and primarily useful as a source of extra cash. It was my first real job. Previous summers had seen me volunteering as a day camp counselor and spending weeks away in nerdy pursuits like band camp and, even worse, quiz bowl camp. I didn't think ahead too clearly, but I vaguely assumed that Showplace would just be for those few months before college. And then, well, I'd be in college. The job was slightly more dignified than character James' position running the games at his local trashy carnival, but it did involve sweeping up other people's trash, wearing a bowtie and oversized blue newsboy cap, and shamelessly urging people to buy obscenely large drinks and popcorn. I didn't talk to many of my coworkers at first, and I was slightly embarrassed whenever I saw a former classmate come in to see a movie. As James says in the movie when his mom suggests he hang out with his old friends, "And tell them I work as a carny?"
But it's almost three years since I first started there, and I'll probably be heading back for another summer. Like James, I never could have foreseen that my shitty summer job could bring me some of the best memories and closest friends of my life so far. I met two boyfriends through Showplace 16, and I've met people I now count among my best friends. I've laughed so hard I couldn't breathe, and I've cried a little. I've had terrible days when people yelled at me or I slipped and fell on popcorn grease or I was just tired and didn't want to be there at all, but that comes with any job, really. And my overall feeling about Showplace 16 is one of happiness and comfort.
I think part of what's so great about such jobs is that they really are a space outside of time and other constraints, a great leveler. I may have scored twice as high on the ACT as some of my coworkers; I may leave at the end of each summer to go study journalism in a big city far away, but when we're stacking Mega Tubs on the concessions counter or mopping up cherry Icee in the lobby, none of that matters at all. In those summers, I don't have to think about the future, don't have to constantly worry about my honors thesis or grad school applications or what the hell I'm actually going to do when I'm ultimately ejected into the "real world." I'm surrounded by people with whom I instantly have a shared language and a common goal--serving customers and getting through the day--and somehow it just feels better than the grimmer, more posed world of college. As Adventureland shows, everyone is the same at a minimum-wage job, even though people are known for different things, and you forge random connections with people. And maybe you meet someone special and have a summer romance, as James does in the movie, or maybe you just have fun with people you may never talk to again. I can only hope whatever "real" job I get someday is as much fun.
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