There are films that seek to depict the ‘before’ moments that led to a person committing a heinous crime, for instance, a mass shooting. Then there are those that will take you to the actual time and place of the terror and let the viewers experience the horror and terror of mass killings for the entire duration of the film. Then a different group of films chooses an elegant way to depict the consequences of violence, any kind of violence. These are all phenomena that have found themselves in the cinematic spheres in regards to school violence in America. For the ‘before it happened’ category, one can refer to We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lynne Ramsay. For what happens during the action, the best casted work would be Elephant by Gus Van Sant, winner of the Palme d’Or. Here we focus on The Graduates and our target category is ‘after it happened.’
When you have already watched The Fallout (2021) with Jenna Ortega, this particular cameo will definitely be an extension of the experience’s that Katie Peterson’s writer-director showcases. It is a standalone piece that demonstrates sensitivity to the theme of high school students surviving a massacre within the eye of the storm, a few moments before the wrestling with the atmosphere of the graduation ceremony.
As for The Graduates, one might feel that it’s just not as exciting as the other mainstream blockbusters today. However, if you can sit through all that, one might find the photography to be aesthetically pleasing, and the emotional themes explored in the film to be informative on the atmosphere of such institutions in a post-traumatic context. And hello, it never hurts to have an Oscar winner around, Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) is an executive producer here so you know this is already off to a good place.
While most of the casting in the film was done with young adults, there is nothing that can be termed YA cringe about these figures that Peterson puts into focus, nor the perspective or the actions of these characters either age seems much wiser than their years. Mina Sundwall gets the dramatic lead role in this film and she is quite convincing in it, bringing nuance to the character of Genevieve, a high school senior who has friends but all of them are heartbroken and awaiting their graduation.
This begs the question: are they counting down in excitement like it’s a new year or are they just waiting to get out of the school that witnessed a gruesome massacre the previous year to which some of Mina’s classmates passed away much too early to enjoy a normal life? In this regard, it is perhaps worth noting that maybe Mina is in mourning more than what her living classmates around her are. Among the deceased group was her beloved boyfriend and in turn, his father John (the absolutely amazing John Cho) is a basketball coach in school.
As the end of her senior year approaches, John and Genevieve maintain contact. This period is packed with activities thanks to classes taught by encouraging mentors who motivate kids. Besides hitting the books and doing tests in the classroom, Ms. Genevieve and her mates are part of a recovery group on a weekly basis. Such a group is experienced in trauma healing as many of the people in the group have had mass shooting experience like Genevieve and the rest of the people who were in that classroom.
The chaos left by the war added more strain in Genevieve’s family, which made her take a drastic measure of taking a break for a year in between high school and college. Her fractures from this relationship are persistent as well and have caused friction between her and her no nonsense mother, who goes by the name Maggie (portrayed by Maria Dizzia) She enjoys all the love permitted in John’s family for he has a woman that he adores and a kid they both cherish. However, as it is known the house had an empty room right on the upper floor, a room that belonged to his child, a child that has been tragically taken away due to unforeseen incidents that occurred in school.
And then of course there is Ben (portrayed by Alex Hibbert) who star in the film Moonlight and unfortunately he does not showcase a functioning storyline within the film. Instead he portrays a very important role that helps in setting The Graduates stray away from the amazing competition within the genre itself. Ben “wasn’t there”, and this is one of the statements that he continuously shouts throughout the events in the movie along with a handful of other characters. This statement is ironically, one of the most pertinent factors in understanding his anguish and mind-set over the events that unfolded.
Had he showed up, he could have been the one, and the idea makes him furious and one can see why. It’s just one instance in a long process that the writer-director Peterson appears to examine with so much feeling in her feature film debut and one wonders what is next for her. Look, if executive producer Chloé Zhao moved from Nomadland to Marvel, what can be in store for Peterson?
But, if Peterson remains in the realm of engaging in her personal struggle with narrative films such as The Graduates, that is perfectly reasonable. She gets compelling performances out of Hibbert and the rest of the young cast in this strikingly quiet, languorous essay on grief, bereavement and the very act of moving on. A phone message of a victim killed in a mass shooting that the survivors call ‘Aren’t you going to leave a message?’ in a phone recording is one more devastating story element that adds chills to the already painful plot. One goes even further to hear the deceased’s voice saying, ‘Hey it’s me, don’t leave a message because I won’t check it’, words that do not have to be spoken as they are already painfully etched in the hearts of many.
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