In case you didn’t know by now, my wife and I have a system when it comes to picking movies to watch. Several years ago, we started to write down titles on post-its and alternate picks every day. Post-Grad was one of my wife’s picks for movie night.
I have never watched the Gilmore Girls (sorry fans) but knew Alexis Bledel from the Traveling Pants movies. I had never heard of this movie, which also stars Michael Keaton as her dad. Even though I had a hard time watching a guy who once played Batman and won an Oscar for being a crazy washed-up superhero, it was hard to comprehend his character and flaws. But, his faults were what made his role special and filled the movie with lots of laughs. (The dead cat scene is one of the best.)
Bledel’s character had a great life planned out for herself. After graduating, she was going to work at this book company, the one she’d dreamt of all her whole life and be a happy employee forever. But as we all know, the real world is a harsh place, and after graduating, playtime is over.
We can all relate to her character and her struggles. She ends up with a new barricade at every step of achieving her goals, but her attitude to never settle is an admiring trait. However, once she realizes all her dreams have come true, she learns another harsh reality, one that many of us have discovered ourselves. The grass is not always greener on the other side.
While pursuing a career, a good portion of us believes once we achieve that job or that promotion, we can settle in and be content with our lives. Sometimes those positions come with more problems than we could have ever imagined and alter our life in such a way we begin to think about what went wrong.
This movie is meant to be a comedy about living with crazy parents, falling in love and not realizing it until it’s too late, and the struggles of finding a job after college. I took away far more than that since I have chased down a few things in life that I thought would be the greatest thing ever, only they didn’t.
You can watch Post Grad and enjoy it for a few laughs, or you could watch it to appreciate the struggles we have all faced at one point or another. 7/10
Ten Stars or Less 