Post Grad

Susan Granger’s review of “Post Grad” (Fox Searchlight Films)

 

    Former “Gilmore Girl” and “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” alum Alexis Bledel deserves better than this lackluster coming-of-age comedy that is obviously on the fast-track to the dvd shelf.

    As ambitious, over-confident Ryden Malby, she has just graduated from college and is determined to make it big in the L.A. publishing business. Bubbling with enthusiasm and batting her cerulean-blue eyes, she’s nevertheless robbed of her dream job by Jessica Bard (Catherine Reitman) and forced to return home. That means going back to suburbia in the San Fernando Valley with her daffy, do-it-yourself, get-rich-quick-inclined dad (Michael Keaton), penny-pinching mom (Jane Lynch), weird kid brother (Bobby Coleman) and politically-incorrect, oxygen-tank-toting grandma (Carol Burnett) who’s into coffins. Whiny Ryden’s only solace is spending time with her devoted best friend, Adam (Zach Gilford from “Friday Night Lights”), who offers an enduring relationship. Or should she take a chance with a hunky Brazilian neighbor (Rodrigo Santoro, a.k.a. Xerxes in “300”)?

    Forgetting the formulaic characters and situations, what’s most distressing about Kelly Fremon’s script, directed by Vicky Jensen, are the ideas that – when encountering career obstacles – young women should forget their dreams and aspirations, even their independence, return to the nest, settle for security with the most obviously eligible suitor and wait for a miracle to happen.

    What hypocrisy from a writer and a director who tenaciously had to beat the odds in order to get a movie made in Hollywood! Hailed as the next-generation’s Nora Ephron, Kelly Fremon started out as a stand-up comic and scored her first writing assignment after an internship at Immortal Entertainment. Vicky Jenson started in animation as a cell painter, working on backgrounds for “The Flintstones” and “Smurfs” at Hanna Barbera Studios. In 1996, Jenson joined DreamWorks, honing her skills as a production designer, story artist and director. They obviously didn’t capitulate when faced with rejection, so why should their heroine?

    Considering the waste of time, comedic talent and film-financing, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Post Grad” is an inexcusably unrealistic, dull 3. It flunks.

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