Miramax Films

James (Jesse Eisenberg) and Em (Kristen Stewart) fall in love while working at an amusement park.

The trailers for "Adventureland" suggest yet another coming-of-age comedy about horny stoners whiling away a final summer before leaping into Real Life.

The movie contains plenty of pot smoking and horniness, not to mention puking and other crudities of the genre. But that's all happily secondary to writer-director Greg Mottola's affecting story of young people who yearn to be what they are not -- which is happy -- in 1987 Pittsburgh.

At their center is brainy and semi-nerdy James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg), whose college graduation gift of a summer in Europe falls victim to family financial reversals. His entry into graduate school at Columbia University is jeopardized for the same reason.

Forced to take a summer job and armed only with an irrelevant liberal arts degree, he finds himself running game booths at a family amusement park called Adventureland.

James' gloom lightens a bit as he discovers that a few of his co-workers, though afflicted with family problems and dashed hopes of their own, at least make for interesting and amusing company. Among them are classics-quoting Joel Schiffman (Martin Starr), who gets to utter many of the movie's funniest lines; handyman Mike Connell (Ryan Reynolds), the park's married Casanova; daffy Adventureland operators Paulette and Bobby (Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader); and the lovely Em (Kristen Stewart).

Em's home life is a nightmare and she is additionally suffering the consequences of a misguided liaison. It threatens to wreck their romance when she and James stumble into love.

Though the miseries of James and company are real enough, Mottola keeps them in check with well-executed physical comedy and a nonstop train of sharp lines and verbal jokes, some of which require careful attention by viewers. The casting is occasionally problematic, as various cast members seem too old or too young for their parts. But that deficiency is offset by the touching performances, especially those of Eisenberg and Stewart.

Relieved patrons sometimes say of a film that "it was better than I expected." "Adventureland" seems fated to be one of those, though it deserves more than the faint praise that the expression implies. Warmly recommended.