The number of films that begin at their end and then ask us to walk with them as they retrace their steps through the past are countless. Recently, Snow Angels brought us back slowly to the time of the crime. Just before that, Vantage Point subjected us to six trips through the same fifteen minutes.

Graduation is a little more efficient than that, and its opening hook is pretty potent and elegant. The narrator is talking about his high school graduation ceremony, and as the camera dollies across a blood-puddled floor to his feet, he intones: “I would have gone, except for one thing: the police have us surrounded.”

Oh, yeah.

If you’ve got a taste for films that try to capture something of the high-school loser experience in an offbeat way, Graduation mixes in enough plotting to keep your interest and remind you of films like Dazed and Confused (without all the drugs, booze, and four-letter words) or Pump Up the Volume (without the nudity or music) or Some Kind of Wonderful (without it really being a romance). At the heist level, it might remind you of The Score—as it might have been, without Robert DeNiro or Edward Norton.

The story is pretty simple. As four low-rent small-town teens careen toward Emancipation Day, one of them finds out that his mother is terminally ill… and they’ve capped out the benefits on their medical insurance. To save his mom’s life, Carl needs to raise a bundle of cash… and when his buddy Polly discovers that her banker dad has been making some, uh, extra-marital deposits, she decides some pay-out payback is order. She hatches a plot to coordinate a heist with the crew’s Monday-morning graduation ceremony. (Say what? Never mind.)

So where does the Wonderful connection come in? Seems that our herorrator Tom has an unrequited thing for Polly; and the rather loutish Chauncey, to whom Polly’s hip is attached, veritably shoves Polly into Tom’s waiting arms… with some really bad timing. Hence that blood on the floor in the very efficient opening sequence…

There’s not a lot to say about the film, other than to remark that’s it’s a very fun little flick that doesn’t pander to the usual conventions of high-schooler dramas. It feels a lot like Coppola’s S.E. Hinton adaptations—Rumble Fish and The Outsiders—without being quite so self-conscious or arty. This is director Michael Mayer’s first real stab at a theatrical release, and if he connects with the right audience he could have a success on his hands.

The real strength of the film is in its casting and direction. Mayer found four very strong actors for his leads, and even the weakest of the bunch (Riley Smith as Chauncey) is still highly watchable and entertaining. Chris Lowell, as Tom, feels a lot like the TV actor that he has recently become, but has the right feel as the underachieving hero who doesn’t know what he wants out of life.

But the star of this show is Shannon Lucio as Polly. She’s already put together a smallish if decent résumé of TV and film work; but here I felt as if I was watching an early Grace Kelly crossed with Bridget Fonda… or something. There’s real talent there, and a good deal of charisma.

Also very much worth mentioning in a supporting performance is Chris Marquette as Carl. He’s got a John Cusack vibe to him, which is good. Cusack is still Cusack, but as Accepted demonstrated last year, we need a younger Cusack type in certain films. I recommend Marquette for that job; he was also memorable in a small role in Alpha Dog last year.

Don’t expect anything mindbinding from Graduation. It’s chock full of clichés—like class sessions that begin with chalk on a blackboard, last ninety seconds, and end with a bell that nobody seems to be expecting. The characters are none too deep, and the final scenes aren’t all that satisfying.

But Mayer has done a good, enjoyable job with this material. As Polly says, “Nothing is just a test.” And with Graduation, Mayer proves he’s ready to move on to the next level.

Graduation is, oddly enough, apparently being released unrated. I’m not sure why that would be. Given the relative absence of drugs, booze, language, and breasts, I don’t know why the film would not have been submitted for rating. I guess I’d give it a pretty light PG-13, mostly just because it’s not the kind of film you want pre-teens getting ideas from. They’ve already got enough screwy ideas of their own.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Greg attended a press screening of Graduation.