Review: Post Grad
Not even worthy of a GED.
If “Post Grad” is supposed help all of us twentysomethings who have found ourselves unemployed and forced to move back home feel better about our circumstances, then it fails, because there is no hope in Post Grad, not even enough for it to merit a drunken 3am viewing after a long day of interviews.
Post Grad tells the story of Rory Gilmore, sorry, Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel), who, in spite graduating from a California university with good grades and all the right internships, is unable to land her dream job at a high profile publishing firm, because it is conveniently taken by her college’s valedictorian (colleges have valedictorians?), Jessica Bard (Catherine Reitman), Ryden’s archenemy.
What follows is uncomfortable moment after uncomfortable moment in a film whose two leads have less chemistry than Sarkozy and his former wife. Zach Gilford plays Adam Davies, who is nothing more than a poor Ducky clone. Adam has carried a torch for Ryden throughout college, and it seems as though he might put off his admission to Columbia Law School in order to be with this girl, assuming she finally can see him in anything other than a platonic light. Why the film could clear Columbia but not a single UC school is unbeknownst to me. Perhaps the Chancellors all saw the film in advance and didn’t want to associate themselves with something like this.
The lack of chemistry is so bad that at points which are supposed to be romantic - like a foot/upper leg massage in an empty grocery store, which I would argue is more creepy than romantic - come of as more unsettling than anything else. Ryden’s needlessly quirky family, played by Michael Keaton, Jane Lynch, and Carol Burnett, the only person in the film who actually manages to be funny, only add to this disconcerting feeling. However, Burnett’s delivery of one-liners and spinning jewelry case of pills along with her near-drag/Sunset Boulevard makeup are the only tiny bright spot in this worthless film.
Rodrigo Santoro, the guy you didn’t care about during Lost’s third season, is supposed to play an object of desire or temptation for Ryden akin to the hot naked guy in the Sex and the City movie, but comes off like more of a predator, inflatable furniture and all. I don’t know if chemistry is again the culprit here, but I was desperately hoping that Chris Hansen would make a cameo at some point, because that would have been more interesting than the entirely predictable sequence of - say inspirational words, make out, realize that you’re in love with the guy who’s obsessed with you pattern that has been done over and over again.
Ryden spends a lot of time trying to find a job trolling the want ads in the newspaper - because people still do that? - and ultimately never has to really work to get her dream job, because another plot contrivance quickly clears things up to lead neatly to the Grand Romatic Gesture, which adds to the whole pedophile overtone by using an ice cream truck, which then lead to Ryden leaving her job which, of course, wasn’t what she thought it would be so she quits, and then leads to the Fly Across the Country for Love move, which, of course, works.
If Rory Gilmore, who Bledel is best known for playing, was put into this situation, not only would she have gotten a job a lot faster than Ryden did, with more wit and intelligence than Ryden could have ever hoped to display. Additionally, this film almost insults college graduates, especially female ones, because of the way that it ends: You can have love or you can have career, but not both. Sorry, ladies!
My advice: stay in school. Spend your time in the library working on your MA or studying for the LSATs rather than seeing this movie.
If “Post Grad” is supposed help all of us twentysomethings who have found ourselves unemployed and forced to move back home feel better about our circumstances, then it fails, because there is no hope in Post Grad, not even enough for it to merit a drunken 3am viewing after a long day of interviews.
Post Grad tells the story of Rory Gilmore, sorry, Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel), who, in spite graduating from a California university with good grades and all the right internships, is unable to land her dream job at a high profile publishing firm, because it is conveniently taken by her college’s valedictorian (colleges have valedictorians?), Jessica Bard (Catherine Reitman), Ryden’s archenemy.
What follows is uncomfortable moment after uncomfortable moment in a film whose two leads have less chemistry than Sarkozy and his former wife. Zach Gilford plays Adam Davies, who is nothing more than a poor Ducky clone. Adam has carried a torch for Ryden throughout college, and it seems as though he might put off his admission to Columbia Law School in order to be with this girl, assuming she finally can see him in anything other than a platonic light. Why the film could clear Columbia but not a single UC school is unbeknownst to me. Perhaps the Chancellors all saw the film in advance and didn’t want to associate themselves with something like this.
The lack of chemistry is so bad that at points which are supposed to be romantic - like a foot/upper leg massage in an empty grocery store, which I would argue is more creepy than romantic - come of as more unsettling than anything else. Ryden’s needlessly quirky family, played by Michael Keaton, Jane Lynch, and Carol Burnett, the only person in the film who actually manages to be funny, only add to this disconcerting feeling. However, Burnett’s delivery of one-liners and spinning jewelry case of pills along with her near-drag/Sunset Boulevard makeup are the only tiny bright spot in this worthless film.
Rodrigo Santoro, the guy you didn’t care about during Lost’s third season, is supposed to play an object of desire or temptation for Ryden akin to the hot naked guy in the Sex and the City movie, but comes off like more of a predator, inflatable furniture and all. I don’t know if chemistry is again the culprit here, but I was desperately hoping that Chris Hansen would make a cameo at some point, because that would have been more interesting than the entirely predictable sequence of - say inspirational words, make out, realize that you’re in love with the guy who’s obsessed with you pattern that has been done over and over again.
Ryden spends a lot of time trying to find a job trolling the want ads in the newspaper - because people still do that? - and ultimately never has to really work to get her dream job, because another plot contrivance quickly clears things up to lead neatly to the Grand Romatic Gesture, which adds to the whole pedophile overtone by using an ice cream truck, which then lead to Ryden leaving her job which, of course, wasn’t what she thought it would be so she quits, and then leads to the Fly Across the Country for Love move, which, of course, works.
If Rory Gilmore, who Bledel is best known for playing, was put into this situation, not only would she have gotten a job a lot faster than Ryden did, with more wit and intelligence than Ryden could have ever hoped to display. Additionally, this film almost insults college graduates, especially female ones, because of the way that it ends: You can have love or you can have career, but not both. Sorry, ladies!
My advice: stay in school. Spend your time in the library working on your MA or studying for the LSATs rather than seeing this movie.