"The Graduation Party" is a film by an award winning writer director, creator of the great 4 star documentary "The Last Game" which was called the best sports film every made by the LA Times. This time out he tackles the subject of endings, beginnings, the death of youth and the birth of adulthood. These may be heavy themes but as they collide during the last party after graduation, the group of friends defer such reality with sustained non-sobriety, until the dawn shines the enlightenment of a misspent youth now gone. The party becomes both metaphor, analogy, tableau and allegory- and the catalyst of memories reminisced accelerate the maturity of some, while others refuse to leave the womb of the dorm room, the artificial secular sanctuary of the campus university. Oh, and everyone gets high, everyone gets drunk and everyone gets laid. But there is free lunch or hard lemonade and in the end such hedonism brings a bill that all must pay...
With films like The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire... Not to mention the seminal cinematic coming of age masterpiece... The Graduate... Does the world really need a new coming of age film? In the deft hands of this filmmaker, we do, as this generation, as every generation, requires definition and a legacy for their future heirs to see... and since growing up and growing old are not related to wisdom or any sort of intergenerational story passed down and told to the eldest child in a futile attempt to tame the wild sowing of our immature oats, sometimes even creating a reversal and paradox where the parent Shepard is taken care by his and her flock, who once where helpless, cashless and clueless until that day in early to mid May when we experience the sudden shocking and abrupt graduation sensation we call... Growing Up.
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