Try Harder! Review: Endearing, Alarming Doc on Senior-Year College-Application Hope and Heartbreak
The agonies and ecstasies of a high-achieving majority Asian-American senior class during a cutthroat college application season.
Jessica Kiang, provided by
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Running time: Running time: 84 MIN
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
“You get used to feeling mediocre,” says one of the merely very bright students in a school full of what he considers “geniuses.” “Try Harder,” Debbie Lum’s simultaneously charming and chastening documentary on the senior class in Lowell High the majority Asian-American, top-ranked school in San Francisco takes its cue from its lovable, dorky, high-achieving subjects and mostly remains in a cheerful register, heroizing a group rarely celebrated in high school movies: the good kids.