Post Grad (2009)

Post Grad tells the story of the misadventures of an offbeat, quirky California family on their way to jettisoning their one terribly dull daughter from a plane at 40,000 feet. Well, that’s the story I wish it told.

Instead, Alexis Bleidel plays Ryden Malby, the headlining "post grad," fresh from walking across the stage in her cap and gown, but only after being beaten out for valedictorian of Fake California University by an uptight overachiever named Jessica (Catherine Reitman). In spite of her second place finish, Ryden is sure that her lifelong plan of getting a job at Los Angeles’ most prestigious publishing house (this New Yorker wasn’t aware they had any) and moving into a brand new duplex with a view.

Alas, the job market has different plans for Ryden. When she arrives for her job interview—for which a professor has put in a good word—she is trumped by Jessica again, even though she is appropriately dressed and has had all the "right" (read: predictable) internships. So Ryden is forced to come up with a new life plan for her first year out of school. Luckily (although she doesn’t seem to think so), she’s got the support of Adam (Zach Gilford), her doting best friend who dreams of being so much more, and her quirky, offbeat family. This includes her Mr. Fix-it dad, Walter (Michael Keaton, who I swear I haven’t seen in a decade), long-suffering mother, Carmella (Jane Lynch), very strange little brother Hunter (Bobby Coleman), and hypochondriac, pretending-to-be-bat-shit-crazy grandmother (Carol Burnett).

A series of job-hunting montages and an "embarrassing" sequence involving serving her arch-nemesis while wearing a bellhop’s uniform at her dad’s luggage store ensue. Along the way, Ryden ignores the affections—well, really all of the feelings—of the folks who have rallied around her in her time of need and has a brief fling with her bespectacled and stubbly (in a really, really hot way) Brazilian neighbor (Rodrigo Santoro), while whining about her miserable lot in life. Excuse me if I’m not inclined to cue the violins.

It’s hard to tell which part of this throw-away dramedy is more insipid: scribe Kelly Fremon’s paint-by-numbers love/career story and two-dimensional characters; Vicky Jenson’s unimaginative yadda-yadda directing (she resorts to the montage a few times too often); or Bleidel’s totally lackluster performance.

So you can see why I wish the plot really did involve throwing Ryden from a plane (or any other fast-moving mode of transportation that would inflict maximum damage). The only enjoyable moments of the film are when the gifted, if slightly musty, Keaton and Burnett work their onscreen mojo. Given just how tedious Bleidel is to watch, it’s understandable that the filmmakers would want to give the veterans room to maneuver. But the unresolved side stories about grandma’s coffin, little brother’s boxcar race, and dad’s nascent illegal belt buckle business take up too much screen time. This limits the film’s ability—and perhaps, desire—to develop a meaningful love story between Ryden and Adam, whom she ultimately chooses for presumably no other reason than the twinkle in his tooth and ability to strum a guitar.

Don’t worry. That’s not really a spoiler. Post Grad is so ridiculously predictable that you need only watch the trailers to know where the whole inane shebang is headed. And that’s in the same direction as Ryden’s future: nowhere fast.