School of soft knocks

Bring me sunshine: anaemic cuties Alexis Bledel and Rodrigo Santoro

POST GRAD
Directed by Vicky Jenson. Starring Alexis Bledel, Zach Gilford, Rodrigo Santoro, Bobby Coleman, Fred Armisen, Jane Lynch, Carol Burnett, Michael Keaton 12A cert, gen release, 88 min

HERE'S A CRAZY notion. Could Little Miss Sunshinebe the most influential film of the decade that ends today? The film did not, it is true, break that much new ground, but, within a year or two of its release, its distinctive class of unthreatening lo-cal indie humour had embedded itself in the American mainstream.

Take Post Grad. (Please! Ho, ho, ho!) On paper, the picture reads like an industry-standard romcom aimed at older teens. Alexis Bledel, late of Gilmore Girls, plays a recent graduate who, after launching herself with pre-credit crunch optimism, slowly realises that

finding a job may not be so easy. She abandons her plans to rent a vast loft and moves back with her annoying but largely supportive family.

You can see where this is going. Dad is a loveable dreamer with various deluded schemes to make millions. Her little brother is the school oddball. Granny is deranged. Only mom is sane. You see what we meant about Little Miss Sunshine?

To be fair, the veterans in the cast do some good work. Michael Keaton drags out his creased vulnerability as likably flawed dad. The inhumanly reliable Jane Lynch makes something interesting of the underwritten mother. And Carol Burnett – standing in, you can’t help but think, for Alan Arkin – showcases brilliant comic timing as the grandmother.

Unfortunately, the family scenes feel so second-hand that they’re hard to watch without sneering. More damagingly, the central romance (Zach Gilford plays an old pal who has always harboured romantic feelings) is, even by the standards of the teen romcom, absurdly drippy and anaemic. Still, it could have been a lot worse.