Can you believe college graduates aren’t guaranteed their dream job the moment they leave campus with sheepskin in hand?
It’s a lesson the star of the bland new comedy “Post Grad” fails to grasp.
That blinding naivete might have provided just the comedic spark this otherwise milquetoast movie needs.
Instead, we’re left with saggy plot lines, a dearth of decent dialogue for the film’s rich cast and a lead actress whose pluck nearly makes all of the above immaterial.
“Gilmore Girls” graduate Alexis Bledel stars as Ryden Malby, a freshly minted college grad gunning for a job at a prestigious publishing firm.
She’s stunned when she doesn’t get the job, and further flabbergasted when finances force her to move back home with Ma (Jane Lynch) and Pa (Michael Keaton, mugging so frantically it hurts).
Poor pretty Ryden isn’t sure what to do now, besides ignoring the obvious advances of her longtime buddy Adam (Zach Gilford) and flirting with her older, sexier neighbor.
The film’s clever opening looks like a computer screen with multiple windows open. Ryden’s vlog gets us up to speed on her story, and we also see a clip of sensitive Adam strumming on his guitar.
“Post Grad’s” clever quotient is maxed out in the first five minutes.
Bledel is sweet and blindingly pretty, and also preternaturally youthful looking, a factor which suits the film’s demographic but makes her canoodling with her neighbor a bit creepy.
Somehow, Lynch doesn’t deliver a single laugh, nor does Carol Burnett who plays Ryden’s grandmother.
“Post Grad” tries to be of-the-moment, so why does the film feature two moments in which Ryden is frantically circling help wanted ads in the local paper.
Craigslist? Hello??
A sub-plot involving a go-kart race adds less than nothing to the story, but the folks who bring us Eskimo Pies must be delighted that their food product is considered the best way to beat back the blues.
Maybe Ryden could get a job in product placement?
“Post Grad” represents purely inoffensive entertainment, unless you take it to heart that so many actors were forced to participate with so little results.
(Photo: L-R: Michael Keaton, Carol Burnett, Bobby Coleman, Jane Lynch, Alexis Bledel and Zach Gilford star in “Post Grad.” Photo Credit: Suzanne Tenner)
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