POST GRAD

Unfortunately, I’m not really sure what this movie was about. More tragically, I don’t think the filmmakers know, either.

Trying so very hard to be a quirky indie comedy, the film centers on recent college graduate Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel), who’s not only saddled with a needlessly pretentious (and quirky!) name but who’s forced to move back home with her only-in-the-movies eccentric (and quirky!) family when she doesn’t land what is evidently the only job she’s ever wanted in her life. Why? Because apparently she also only wants to live in a $3500/month loft apartment, and being unemployed sort of stomps all over that dream. (Are these really her only options? $3500/month or live with mom and dad? No middle ground? Really? Per the screenwriter, yes.)

Once back at the (quirky!) suburban family homestead, Ryden tries to re-adjust to life with her over-the-top goofy (and quirky!) dad (Michael Keaton, trying waaaaay too hard), her encouraging (but still quirky!) mom (a supremely underused Jane Lynch), her whacked-out (quirky with a capital Q!) grandmother (a slumming Carol Burnett), and her moppet-like (adorably quirky!) little brother (Bobby Coleman). Everybody is oozing quirk, to the point that I was literally heaving sighs of embarrassment for them.

Anyway...

Art imitates art as this painfully directionless movie about a painfully directionless young woman rolls on. Ryden sort of tries to find herself (I think?) amid this sea of quirk, while repeatedly running into her overachieving former classmate (Catherine Reitman), whose omnipresence makes no sense, really. Ryden is also torn between two suitors – her sweet, longtime best friend Adam (Zach Gilford), and the Latin heartthrob (Rodrigo Santoro) who lives next door to her parents... whom she meets after her father runs over said heartthrob’s cat, because what’s quirkier than a flattened-feline meet-cute? Seriously.

Despite an admittedly great soundtrack, the entire film is more like a series of pointless vignettes aimed at upping the quirk ante instead of supporting a cohesive narrative. I wasn’t sure whether it was meant to be a romantic comedy or a slice of family life or some kind of misguided attempt at a coming-of-age story about a young woman facing the realities of life after graduation. It felt unbelievably contrived and slap-dash, and I had no idea what many of the scenes had to do with each other, or why the audience should care about a fairly whiny twentysomething lead character who bears more than a passing resemblance to Bledel’s TV alter ego, Rory Gilmore.

Sadly, I find Bledel woefully one-note, in general, and this equally one-note film didn’t change that. Quirk or no quirk.