La bachelière

Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel) has planned her academic life since she was in high-school to get a college scholarship; now she has just graduated in English and in her master plan she expects to get a job as assistant editor in the publishing house Happerman & Browning, in Los Angeles. Her platonic best friend is Adam Davis (Zach Gilford) that has a crush on her and is frequently close to her. However, her arrogant classmate Jessica Bard (Catherine Reitman) gets the position and Ryden is forced to return home in the suburb to live with her optimistic father Walter (Michael Keaton) that wants to do everything by himself; her careful mother Carmella (Jane Lynch) that administrates the the short resources of her family; her eccentric grandmother Maureen (Carol Burnett); and her weird little brother Hunter (Bobby Coleman) that wishes to race in a boxcar derby. Ryden unsuccessfully seeks a job position and feels frustrated but is emotionally supported by Adam. When Walter accidentally runs over the cat of his next-door neighbor David Santiago (Rodrigo Santoro) with Ryden's car, they visit him to give their sympathies. Ryden feels attracted by the handsome Brazilian and has a brief affair with him, forgetting Adam that decides to move to New York to study in the law school of Columbia. Meanwhile Ryden is invited to join Happerman & Browning and she discovers that feelings cannot be planned.

"Post Grad" is one of those movies that professional movie critics hate and obviously will never be awarded or nominated or even participate in festivals. The low IMDb User Rating (5.1/10 with 2,128 votes) is an evidence of the foregoing statement. However, this romantic comedy is an enjoyable family entertainment recommended for a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. The delightful film is funny and very pleasant, with a good message. Alexis Bledel, from "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants", is one of the most beautiful actresses of the younger generation and the role of Ryden Malby seems to be tailored for her. The Brazilian Rodrigo Santoro and the unknown Zach Gilford have good participation as romantic pairs of Alexis Bledel. The veterans Michael Keaton, Jane Lynch and Carol Burnett have an effective participation composing a very weird suburban family. The shameful DVD released in Brazil by Fox do Brasil does not have subtitles in Portuguese. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Recém Formada – E Agora?" ("Just Graduated – And Now?")

So does Alexis Bledel plan to build a movie career out of tracing the hypothetical life trajectory of the character she created on "Gilmore Girls?"

This is the second movie I've seen this year in which Bledel basically plays Rory Gilmore at the stage of her life she would generally be in if "Gilmore Girls" was still on the air. In this movie, she's a perky go-getter who's aghast when she finds out that the world will not necessarily adapt itself to her designs and whims, until...guess what....it does and she gets everything she wanted anyway.

This movie is harmless enough, but the only thing that makes it more worth your time than something from the straight-to-DVD bargain bin in the supermarket (or maybe this WAS one of those films) is a crazy and admittedly pretty funny performance from Michael Keaton as Bledel's doofus father.

Grade: B-

Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel) is a straight A student, but her life post graduation hasn't been going well. She loses her dream job, her car is crushed in a hit-and-run, and she's forced to return to her crazy family home. Her best friend Adam Davis (Zach Gilford) has a crush on her. Her nemesis Jessica Bard (Catherine Reitman) gets the dream job. Her father (Michael Keaton) and her mother (Jane Lynch) just want to help. The next door neighbor is a hot hunky douche (Rodrigo Santoro) who Ryden is immediately smitten with. Her eccentric grandmother Maureen(Carol Burnett), and her weird little brother Hunter (Bobby Coleman) also live in the house.

Alexis Bledel is a cute girl, but she comes off as self-obsessed. She has to be careful with that. It can be very unlikeable and whiny. The movie had the potential as a good rom-com. But it concentrates too much on Ryden getting a job rather than getting the boy. And Adam is missing for most of the movie anyways. There are some great comedic skills being wasted in this film. Michael Keaton is OK, but Jane Lynch is downright boring. Carol Burnett tries for flashy brash grandma stuff. At least she got a couple of smiles but no laughs. Demetri Martin does a cute bit.

This was a very bland teen type of film. It's about a girl, Ryden, whom graduates near the top of her college class. She thinks she has everything planned out with a job and an apartment. But finding a job is much harder than she imagined. So, she moves back in with her parents, whom really aren't interesting characters. Here the movie could have been done better, if the parents were funny, but they weren't. So she goes to a lot of job interviews, once again, not really that interesting. Then there is the love interest, Adam, a guy she has known for years whom has always liked her but she considered him a friend till now. When he leaves, she realizes she liked him too so sets out on a new path in life at the end.

FINAL VERDICT: This was like a dull teen movie and it wasn't even supposed to be a comedy. Not worth seeing.

When the movie ends, you can summarize it in only one sentence. During the whole movie, we (two 18 year old girls) kept predicting what would happen next and every time we were right. It feels like they almost got it right every scene, but somehow only certain scenes lift up the quality of the movie. Most of the time those are the scenes with only Alexis Bledel and Zach Gilford. The parents of Alexis' character were very annoying -except for Jane Lynch- and we couldn't figure out what was the function of the son and the grandmother. If they were there to be funny, it didn't work. None of the funny stuff worked actually, except for a certain incident with an animal -people who've seen it will know-.

There were two things that kept our attention, mind you we're teenage girls, was Alexis' gorgeous hair and her clothes. Choice of wardrobe was fabulous.

in the end, this movie has many potential, they wanted it to be great, funny and dramatic but it just didn't work out that way. The storyline is too thin and the ending is very sudden, which is also very annoying. We've been watching the main character struggle the entire movie and then it suddenly all ends.

Only watch it when there's nothing better on.