'Try Harder!' Review
NR
Runtime: 1 Hr and 25 Minutes
Production Companies: California Council for the Humanities, ITVS, Independent, Lens, XTR
Distributor: N/A
Director: Debbie Lum
Release Date: N/A
At Lowell High School, the top public high school in San Francisco, the seniors are stressed out. As they prepare for the emotionally draining college application process, students are keenly aware of the intense competition for the few open spots in their dream colleges. They scrutinize how every element of their application, from their classes to their extracurricular activities to their racial identities, might be read by admission officers. At Lowell—where cool kids are nerds, nearly everyone has an amazing talent, and the majority of the student body is Asian-American—the things that usually make a person stand out can feel not good enough, even commonplace.
Remember the most strenuous time of your high school senior experience where you had to compete against thousands of kids in America to get into the college you wanted to attend? It was a taste of the harsh realities of this country where everything from SAT scores to race/ethnicity plays a part in deciding where you’ll attend the next four years. Well, get ready to relive those agonizing memories with Debbie Lum’s Try Harder!, in which highly talented kids at San Francisco’s Lowell High School face the busiest moment of their lives thus far to get into their college of choice.
At the predominantly Asian-American Lowell High School, the film focuses on a specific group of students within the class of 2019 as they navigate through their final year, tackling intimidating obstacles such as SAT scores, AP courses, and their worst enemy: the common app, in order to get into college. Most of the kids — from the top student in the entire school to the dorky, silly ones who dab on camera and do Naruto runs — are likable, charming, and down to Earth. Aside from being impressively smart given their school’s reputation, these kids have wit and are very relatable. You find yourself empathizing with them to some capacity.
The one I connect with the most is Rachael, a biracial girl who is discriminated against because of her mixed background. She elaborates on how her peers would deliberately bring up her mom’s race when she said things like, “My mom is gonna be upset” regarding low test scores. Since she has a Black mother, people usually responded with things like, “Wow, I didn’t think Black people cared about their education or going to college.” That shit hit me hard because I was told the same thing throughout my high school experience while also growing up with a mom who pushed my ass to get nothing but good grades my entire life. That conversation about Black people not caring about grades needs to be nixed in the fucking bud. Normalize accepting someone’s drive no matter where they come from. Fuck that stereotype, man.
The film does a great job hitting every nook and cranny, deconstructing everything that the students put themselves through in order to make their application impressive as hell. Some students took several AP courses while others got involved in student programs and extracurricular activities. Nobody tells you how extracurricular activities play a major role in making your college application look fancy and how early you must get involved with it. It’s difficult enough being a high school student where you exert yourself to make your parents proud while also trying to get into the best college. Besides, even if you get accepted, you don’t necessarily get a scholarship to cover your full tuition.
God, the crazy, traumatic memories are coming back while writing this review. If you just recently left high school or are about to graduate college like me, this movie will seep into your bones and resurrect some old triggers that you thought you stored away forever, such as that damn Common App website. It’s fascinating to see how all these smart kids struggle to write essays in order to sell themselves as human beings just so they can get into these schools. What makes this hit so hard is how these kids realize the fucked up yet surreal dehumanization aspect of the applications outside of simply passing with the highest scores on standardized tests. The film actually discusses racial profiling when it hits the conversation about being part of a non-white demographic. At a certain point, you’re not a high school student trying to get into college anymore. In the eyes of an admissions committee, you’re not a high school student and you’re not a teenager — you’re simply a percentage. Since this school is predominantly composed of Asian kids, they feel the real-world pressures of not having white privilege. After competing their asses off to get into a good college, the kids realize that this country will swiftly tokenize them and get a few Asian kids to fill their quota, as it will for any minority group. The racial profiling regarding admissions is accurate and these kids vocalize their feelings so brilliantly.
Try Harder! chronicles the excruciating process of the American college application with a light-hearted and well-rounded approach, making it digestible for viewers who are in middle school or their early high school years. If I taught middle school or high school students, I would show them this movie to give them a glimpse of the fresh hell that awaits them in 12th grade. Or better yet, make it a discussion about how the system of getting hard-working students in America into the college they deserve needs to be demolished and rebuilt from the ground up, starting with the stupid ass standardized testing, but that’s a story for another day. 4 Stars!
