Plot, characters earn Post Grad an "F

By Jackie Ammons     8/27/09 7:00pm

The theme of Post Grad was timed perfectly. Students are just returning to school, and like the film's main character, many recent college graduates are struggling to find jobs during these hard economic times.So, good for the filmmakers for releasing the film at the right moment. Because that was about all they got right in this comatose, dithering attempt at cinema.

The movie's star, Alexis Bledel, has honed her charm and experience as a college student in Gilmore Girls and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and she gives Post Grad real potential. But, like a promising student who flakes out under the pressures of the real world, the film falls seriously short of its promise and robs itself of any quality through a pointless plotline and outrageous characters.

Bledel plays Ryden Malby, a high-achieving college graduate with visions of working for Los Angeles' top publishing company. After many interviews and subsequent rejections, Ryden begins questioning her future career and her purpose in life. In the meantime, she works for her dad's (The Merry Gentleman's Michael Keaton) Luggage Shack, alienates her best friend (Friday Night Lights' Zach Gilford), makes out with her 34-year-old neighbor (I Love You Phillip Morris' Rodrigo Santoro) and watches her college nemesis (I Love You, Man's Catherine Reitman) steal her dream job.

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In certain instances, bizarre characters can bring out the best as foils and caricatures. But Post Grad seems to miss the memo, and this cast of weirdos has no common connecting point. Ryden's crazy grandmother (Horton Hears a Who!'s Carol Burnett) has an obsession with caskets and buys a lavender one that she has to "try out" before purchasing. And her strange brother (Martian Child's Bobby Coleman) goes beyond eccentricity while licking his classmates' heads because he thinks they taste good. Ryden's father, a kook in his own right, both wears and sells stolen belt buckles shaped like U.S. states. Only Ryden herself is a normal character, except for the fact that she has a few romantic encounters with her neighbor, all of which involve an inflatable couch and other items sold in television infomercials.

Joined together, these characters make for a haphazard plotline that has no real purpose except to confuse and frustrate audiences. These characters' quirks were created to make the plotline varied and interesting, but they are their only dimensions and distract from the supposed main point of the movie: Ryden's search for purpose and a career.

But what are the likes of Burnett, Keaton and Bledel doing in such a failure of a story? Burnett, the famed comedian, may receive a few laughs from the audience for her funereal exploits, but her association with the film is not quite so flattering. How did Keaton, the former Batman star reduce himself to the role of a man who stuffs his neighbor's dead cat into a pizza box? And why is Bledel, a blossoming star, going for this over-the-top humor when her forte is the subtle humor of Gilmore Girls?

Post Grad is certainly a comedy, but its style of humor is ambiguous. Is it dark humor, as the episodes with caskets and Ryden's weird brother suggest? Perhaps slapstick humor, as Keaton's karate moves dictate? Or is it chick- flick humor with Bledel's failed attempts at love on the inflatable couch? Who knows?

In comedy, timing is everything. But when the only timing you get right is the release date, you know you're in for a long, dull ride.

To watch the trailer or read more about the film, visit http://www.foxsearchlight.com/postgrad/.

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