Post Grad (12A)

Time Out says

Thu Dec 24 2009

Timing’s everything in comedy, so perhaps ‘Post Grad’ would have worked better before the crisis. Now, this comedy feels like a cynical stroll along the unemployment lines awaiting today’s graduates. Bubbly Ryden (Alexis Bledel) has a serious sense of entitlement: as the ink dries on her diploma and she preps for an interview with a publisher, little Miss Get-Up-and-Go is already signing the lease on a luxury apartment. There’s just one problem: the job’s taken and Ryden’s savings have evaporated. So back she slinks to her neurotic blue-collar family, job hunting and a one-day stint in the world of retail. Ryden learns little: she rolls her eyes at her father (Michael Keaton) and scoffs at jobs she thinks are beneath her. The laughs hinge on our willingness to forgive her, but the goofy upending of best-laid plans reeks of utter detachment. Ryden ditching a McJob after one shift isn’t a signal of liberation but class-based privilege: what about the desperate folk who’d die to take her place?

Author: S James Snyder, TO New York