Hats off to the Class of 2009 college graduates. And special congratulations to the hard-workers of the class, like Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel) in "Post Grad." Malby nailed scholarships, limited amounts of beer pong playing to keep the said scholarship and made it to her commencement ceremony on time (unlike her wacky family).
The problem Malby faces in the flick is one that recent grads can certainly relate to. Even non-grads can relate to. Even grads going to grad school can relate to: Finding a job.
Bledel plays this overly talkative 20-something (it's like Rory on "Gilmore Girls" never went to an Ivy League school and adopted a new quirky family). The laugh-out-loud moments (and there are quite a few) come from job interviews gone wrong or Malby's family playing up their craziness (Michael Keaton portrays an always-trying-to-give-the-best-to-his-daughter dad; Jane Lynch an it'll-all-be-OK mom; and Carol Burnett an I'm-too-worried-about-myself-namely-my-death grandma). Continue reading on the jump.
The problem: the screenwriters include Malby's trials at romance, too. It's almost as though the writers don't have enough time to build on the mushy stuff (or maybe they just never read "Twilight" as a prime example). Regardless, Malby's romantic scenes come quick, without warning and without a lot of emotion. There's just no time for love, apparently, when you're too busy chasing after success. (Surprisingly, that's not the moral of the story.)
But no one's really caught up in the romance or the storyline when you're watching the Malby family surrounding a hole in the backyard, laying to rest a dead cat in a pizza box, with "Memory" blaring from an '80s boombox. The laughs outweigh the romantic letdowns.
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