People have to make choices throughout their lives of varying sizes and degrees of importance. One of the most significant, however, is in choosing one's vocation after graduating from high school or college. Some kids just let the career chips fall where they may and end up in jobs they never imagined. Others, though, meticulously plot out their academic path in order to land the perfect dream job.
While one hopes that movies will also be the best that they can be, they obviously don't have the ability to do so by themselves. Accordingly, they must rely on others who conceive, nurture and eventually push them out into the real world, hoping for the best or at least some degree of success in their cinematic lives.
Alas, like many a kid and despite the best intentions, that doesn't always come to full fruition, with some films never making it into theaters and others simply not living up to their potential. "Post Grad" is definitely one of the latest examples of just that, a misguided, miscalculated and sloppy dramedy that fails on nearly every level.
Working from a script by Kelly Fremon, director Vicky Jenson (co-director of "Shrek" and "Shark Tale") never gets a full handle on the material that tries to balance a coming of age story, romantic dramedy and goofy family comedy but stumbles with nearly every step taken.
Having already grown up on screens big and small doing the teen angst thing in "The Gilmore Girls" and the "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" films, Alexis Bledel would seem perfect to graduate up to the young adult going out into the real world storyline.
Here, she plays Ryden Malby, a 22-year-old who's mapped out her career plan, but apparently fails to realize that life has deep pockets of monkey wrenches and loves to toss them in such people's paths. Her inability to anticipate that is just a small contrivance in a film littered with them.
They include, but certainly aren't limited to her lifelong nemesis (Catherine Reitman) getting her coveted job; Ryden being unable to realize that her best friend (Zach Gilford) is obviously interested in and perfect for her; and the next door neighbor being a foreign born hottie with whom she'll briefly have a fling before he indirectly imparts some important life lessons to her.
Notwithstanding the ending that's even more contrived (on so many levels it's hard to decide which is the most egregious) and completely sends the wrong message to young women, the film's big miscue is the inclusion of the whacky family comedy material.
Since Ryden doesn't get her job and thus can't afford her new apartment, she has to move back home with her family. They're comprised of the whacky dad (Michael Keaton) who gets a bee in his bonnet to start a business selling belt buckles (the film seem to think that's funny -- but it isn't). That is, when he's not angry about what the neighbor's cat leaves behind for later stepping into contact (the filmmakers have obviously never owned a cat and are confusing this one with a dog, just like they mistake said feline's demise and later burial in a flat pizza box in a hole too small as humorous).
There's the goofy younger brother (Bobby Coleman) whose mostly normal (if somewhat obnoxious) kid behavior oddly troubles his mom (Jane Lynch doing her normal irritated meets deadpan shtick) when she's not quarreling with her live-in mother-in-law. She's played by Carol Burnett doing the eccentric grandparent bit, taking up where Alan Arkin left off, but is completely wasted much like Keaton and the introduced but then barely used J.K. Simmons.
The zaniness -- that also includes Ryden having to ride a bicycle to job interviews (rather than borrowing the family car) and wearing a goofy head to toe costume to sell luggage -- simply doesn't mesh with the dramatic elements. That results in a cinematic experience that's uneven at best when not bedeviled by clichés and an assortment of small script issues (why do Ryden's parents make her take a cab to the airport when she's moving away rather than drive her there?) that build to a culmination of sloppy filmmaking.
All of which will likely make many a viewer wish the protagonist would go back to school and start all over again. "Post Grad" isn't the worst thing you'll see all year, but it's far, far down the list from whatever this year's cinematic valedictorian will be and clearly doesn't have the grades to graduate to the big screen. It rates as a 3 out of 10.
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