POST GRAD

Year: 2009
USA: Fox Searchlight
UK: Twentieth Century Fox
Cast: Alexis Bledel, Zach Gilford, Michael Keaton, Jane Lynch, Carol Burnett, Rodrigo Santoro, Fred Armisen, Bobby Coleman, Andre Daly, Catherine Reitman, Craig Robinson
Director: Vicky Jenson
Country: USA
USA & UK: 89 mins
USA Rated: PG-13 for sexual situations and brief strong language
UK Certificate: 12A contains one use of strong language and moderate sex references
USA Release Date: 21 August 2009
UK Release Date: 1 January 2010

Synopsis

When her impeccably pre-planned life plan begins to unravel, aspiring book editor Ryden Malby wonders if she'll ever live up to her own high expectations in POST GRAD, a wry and honest look at life after college.

With a shiny new English degree in hand, young overachiever Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel) thinks that success is inevitable. Fresh out of college and ready to take Los Angeles by storm, she has her whole life figured out, starting with a promising job at a top publishing firm and a spacious new loft apartment far from her loving, but chaotic, suburban upbringing. When she loses out of her dream job and her car breaks down, she is faced with the reality of today's job market in one of the longest recessions in recent history. With no way to pay rent on the loft or anywhere else, she is forced to move back home.

Unfortunately life with her fractious family is not part of Ryden's post-college game plan. Her father Walter (Michael Keaton) is an impulsive schemer who keeps trying to distract her from her career path with his own harebrained ideas, while her mother Carmella (Jane Lynch) is all too happy to have her baby girl back in the nest.

Her rapid descent from college superstar to post-grad washout has opened her eyes to a whole new world of intriguing possibilities as she begins to realize that the road to happiness may take a completely different route than the one she had so carefully planned.

POST GRAD is based on screenwriter, Kelly Fremon's, first hand experience of trying to find the 'perfect' job after graduating and then 8 months later still searching, despite applying for any job going. Fremon wrote the script for POST GRAD, which was luckily picked up by Ali Bell of the Montecito Picture Company, touched by its honest portrayal of this real life, desperate situation. A very apt film given today's current economic climate, Alexis Bledel plays the lead character Ryden Malby caught up in this difficult and demoralising circumstance.

Director Vicky Jenson (SHREK, SHARK TALE) makes her live-action directing debut with POST GRAD. Portrayed as a comedy, with Ryden living at home with her eccentric family in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, from where the director likewise grew up, the film also confronts the unique situation facing today's graduates due to the present depressed economy.

From the director

"Ryden is trying to figure out how to be an adult—what is expected of her and what she deserves out of life. There are a lot of college grads flowing out into the world who have been high achievers with great plans and great ideals and lots of expectations. There aren't necessarily wonderful jobs out there for all of them."

"The appeal of this story is that in all of the funny and painful frustration we watch this character go through, we can recognize our own issues. It's great to have goals, but not if they blind you to the life that's right there around you." - Vicky Jenson