Adventureland (2009)

You take the terrible summer job because you need the money. You hate the uniform. You hate the customers. The games are rigged. And somehow, years later, you’d probably give anything for one more shift. That’s Adventureland. Its whole case is built around the weird magic of a summer you don’t realize matters until you’re already leaving it. James and Em are messy, uncertain, jealous and very much not living some perfect movie romance—which is exactly why people defend this one. Against The Way Way Back, it’s the older, more awkward summer-job cousin. Against Call Me by Your Name, nobody gets an Italian villa; they get fluorescent lights and amusement-park music. Yet the emotional destination is surprisingly similar. Was Adventureland actually a crappy summer—or the kind you spend adulthood wishing you could revisit?