As long as you have a college degree, everything afterward will fall into place, right?? Not quite, according to “Post Grad”.
Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel) is about to graduate college. The world is hers for the taking. She is about to lease a beautiful loft apartment, apply for her dream job at a publishing house, and generally have a perfect life. Until Jessica Bard (Catherine Reitman), Ryden’s nemesis, gets the job instead of her. I guess this movie takes place in our time, as jobs are scarce, because now Ryden has to move back home with her eccentric family: Walter and Carmella Malby (Michael Keaton and Jane Lynch), Grandma Maureen (Carol Burnett), and brother Hunter (Bobby Coleman). Also in Ryden’s circle of people is her best friend Adam (Zach Gilford) who has clearly been in love with Ryden forever, but Ryden is either clueless or she realizes Adam’s feelings and she is leading him on (which is not nice!!).
In between Ryden applying for other jobs, she manages to hook up with her hot neighbor David Santiago (Rodrigo Santoro), who I think could pass for a Brazilian version of Orlando Bloom). She tries out several jobs to eek out a post grad existence in today’s economy.
“Post Grad” started out promising. The beginning credits rolled over Ryden’s vlog (that’s video blog, in case ya didn’t know) recorded as she’s getting ready for her college graduation. I thought that was something different and cute. But, as Ryden’s life started unraveling, so did this movie. It seemed like there was a lack of character development. Also, Ryden’s family was just TOO weird, and she was TOO normal. I would have liked to see a better balance of the two – and if they were shooting for a zany comedic tug-of-war, /fail.
I know I always complain about movies being too long, but this one was just lacking something. It seemed to me that there were some scenes that were removed that could have filled out the story better. Overall an OK movie, but I would have expected more from a movie starring the man who was Beetlejuice!!
