The Graduates Review: A Melancholic Look at a Community Bonded by Tragedy

The Graduates is a quiet film. Written and directed by Hannah Peterson, it tells the story of a high school one year after a deadly shooting. Genevieve (Mina Sundwall)––whose boyfriend Tyler was one of the victims––has been struggling to get through her final year, anxious to graduate and hopefully start anew at college. Her mother (Maria Dizzia) walks on eggshells, doing whatever she can to help Genevieve past this impossible trauma and keep her grades and test scores up enough to get her out. Meanwhile, Tyler’s best friend Ben (Alex Hibbert) has returned from a stay away, reforming his friendship with Genevieve. Finally, the school basketball coach (John Cho) does his best to push himself and his team through the season. Tyler was his son.

Peterson introduces the high school in silent silhouette, haunted by its recent past. The camera is often a bit shaky and unstable, a not-so-subtle reflection of the characters it is framing. Cinematographer Carolina Costa does strong work throughout; there’s a particularly beautiful shot of Cho eating alone that will stay with me for some time. We stay close to our subjects, almost like the frame itself is worried not to let the characters be on their own for too long.

The easy criticism is that The Graduates can play like an after-school special. Peterson and her actors elevate the material, despite nearly allowing things to get too maudlin. Some moments (Ben drunkenly wandering to Tyler’s gravestone after a party that ends badly) don’t work as well as others. (In a moment of honesty, Genevieve tells Ben “You don’t get to act like your pain is more than mine.”) Overall, though, the melancholic tone that’s wrapped in hope works quite well. Here is a community bonded by tragedy. There’s a lovely scene in which a teacher tells Genevieve, a talented photographer, “Promise me you won’t stop doing this.”

Sundwall is quite impressive in the lead, with much depending on her in solitary sequences. Not every supporting performer can hold their own next to her, but she’s a gracious screen partner. There is much empathy in every frame here. Dizzia and Cho do superb work, anchoring the emotion and responsibility of the entire picture.

The most important, effective, and unsettling element of this film is the normalcy of it all. At a certain point in the 87-minute runtime, it will occur to each viewer how many towns in how many states in this country are dealing with the aftermath of these kinds of shootings. The number is staggering, disturbing, depressing. An abrasive sound design reminds us of the tension that remains––in every door shut too hard, in every alarm that rings, in every lazy moment. Out of this kind of tragedy will come hope, and The Graduates does well to elucidate as much. But there will always be pain and the fear of the next one. How sad is that?

The Graduates opens on November 1

Grade: B