Try Harder!, 2021.
Directed by Debbie Lum.
SYNOPSIS:
In a universe where cool kids are nerds, the orchestra is world class and being Asian American is the norm, seniors at Lowell High School compete for the top prize: admission to the college of their dreams.
Debbie Lum’s fly-on-the-wall documentary Try Harder! offers an intimate window into a subject most viewers aren’t likely to know much about; the brutal, anxiety-laden nature of the American college admissions process.
For the epicenter of her film, Lum chooses Lowell High School, the top-ranked public high school in San Francisco, where a path to excellence is expected from a large swath of the student body as they make dogged preparations for their preferred colleges – often Ivy League.
What follows is a richly nuanced examination of an especially challenging pathway to higher education, focused on the experiences of a selection of senior students as they navigate euphoric highs and crushing lows on their way to their dream institution – or not.
In the first few seconds of the film, we’re told by one student, “when you first come in from middle school, you’ll want to cry,” while another refers to Lowell as “the ultimate confidence crusher.” Indeed, it is a hot-bed of hyper-competitiveness among not only students – who are effectively competing with one another for precious college spots – but parents also, many of whom forcefully “encouraged” their children to attend the school in the hope they secure a prosperous future.
What Lum’s film captures so succinctly is the nerve-wracking fear of failure for students of whom so much is expected – from their parents, their potential colleges, and also themselves. The anxiety that one wrong answer in an exam could cause a cascade of errors which alters the road map of their adult life is palpably terrifying.
Lum has chosen her focal subjects extremely well, proving a diverse bunch despite the school’s primarily Asian-American dispersion. There’s Ian, the smart young man who finds himself struggling in a sea of “smarter” people; Sophia, the self-assured type-A personality; Rachael, a mixed-race young woman who wrestles with her racial identity; Shea, the environmentalist with a deep desire to change the world; Alvan, the charming class clown with a suffocating mother; and the near-deified Jonathan, an apparent “Renaissance man” with a 4.7 GPA who once intentionally got zero on an exam just to lower the curve for his classmates.
Each student offers a heap of experiential insight through their frank discussions, though perhaps the most bluntly honest perspective comes from a teacher who reminds the kids they can do everything right and still not get what they want.
In eye-opening fashion, Lum piercingly examines Lowell’s paradoxical reputation among colleges; a school teeming with the leaders of tomorrow who are nevertheless viewed by some institutions as personality-devoid robots, resulting in suspiciously low acceptance rates in prime colleges. Generously, these institutions are playing to stereotypes about Asian students, but perhaps more realistically, these colleges are racially profiling their applicants.
This compounds the overall sentiment that the formula for academic success wherever you attend is far more nebulous than most would like it to be; the pathway and how you “package” yourself offers no one-size-fits-all solution. And it underlines perhaps the fundamental issue with the college system – it expects people who are just 17 or 18 years old to know what they want to do with their lives.
Inevitably but painfully, Lum’s third act focuses on the students receiving their acceptances and rejections, a fraught scenario which so many of the students ascertain will dictate their entire future, because it’s the vested interest of colleges to sell that illusion.
But it also erodes the self-worth of intelligent, even brilliant people, chipping away at their spirit until they believe themselves mediocre. Several students lament the lack of feedback about why they’re rejected from colleges, and conversely, successful students such as Rachael are left with a peculiar brand of impostor syndrome, as she considers whether her racial makeup allowed her to get the place she wanted.
For some, the process results in personal growth regardless of its outcome, granting a more nuanced understanding of the world outside of GPAs and AP exams, and also an acceptance of failure beyond the bounds of their own control. Some will learn this isn’t the route for them, but there is hope, with many striving to be more than a statistic, and splinter off in more creative or unexpected directions.
Lum’s film is a textbook example of a sharply observational documentary that gets out of its own way – despite literally poking the camera in classrooms during tests – and lets the subjects run the show. In its finest moments it evokes the noble social tableau of, say, Hoop Dreams or the late Michael Apted’s Up series, gamely investigating the soupy confluence of circumstances both social and not which can define a student’s success.
Despite the stress inherent in the subject matter – this is a genuinely anxious sit – the good-humoured interviewees ensure it’s also charming and entertainingly informative, with genuine hope that most of them will go on to live richly rewarding lives.
Inside of a tight 84 minutes, Debbie Lum’s documentary about the stressors of the college admissions circus captures its subjects with sustained empathy, proving unexpectedly emotionally involving in the process.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more film rambling.
