NOW AND THEN: FROSH TO SENIORS A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ***
Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine's documentary NOW AND THEN: FROSH TO SENIORS, the sequel to their thought-provoking FROSH: NINE MONTHS IN A FRESHMAN DORM, finishes up the story of the 10 Stanford University students. Although not as insightful as Michael Apted's UP documentary series, it shares a similar construction in the way it contrasts people's opinions over a span of time.
Overall, the participants and the movie this time are much mellower and laid back. The original was full of attempts by the kids to be as PC as possible with relentless diatribes against sexism, racism, and all the popular ism's and with putdowns of anyone who dared question the dogma of the day. The first movie contained more surprises, but this one is no less enjoyable and fascinating. It is also much more polished, as the filmmaker's skills have advanced considerably in the interim. They recently won an Emmy for the television documentary "Kids of Survival."
The 10 participants are an ethnic melting pot of men and women who are labeled in the press notes as African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Chinese-Americans and that non-hyphenated catchall, Caucasians.
Somehow the filmmakers have managed to chose 10 kids who go to the top school in the Silicon Valley and yet have found only one genuine entrepreneur in the lot. Of the group, almost half have majors such as Feminist Studies for Political Science and African-American Women's Studies. No matter how representative the group looks, one wonders if they really are. Nevertheless, each of them have intriguing stories.
Monique, the African-American daughter of a crack-addicted mother, laughs at rich white kids who say that money doesn't matter. She goes from scheduling her classes as a freshman around her soap opera viewing to being a GPA-centric senior, as she tries to get into a good grad school.
Cheng, who lives his life in constant overdrive, has had subscriptions to Fortune and the Wall Street Journal since he was a freshman in high school. He's off to be an investment banker, assuming his interviews go okay. He figures that whatever he does, he'll have to work 80+ hour weeks, which will not allow enough time to date. In contrast, his mother says that all she wants for him is for him "to meet a nice girl, be married." Easily the most accomplished student of the group, he is, nevertheless, filled with anxiety and doubt. "The people I interview with just don't like me," he worries, without any real need. "I wish I could change to be a different person." Expect to see Cheng someday on the cover of his beloved Fortune.
Binge drinking is shown as being as natural a part of the curriculum as English composition. The filmmakers, whose biggest problem is that they ask softball questions, never confront the students with their budding alcoholism. Nick, for example, loves college partying and boozing, since he says that he knows his dad lives far away.
Sexual orientation is a problem for some, most noticeably two male buddies (Gerardo and Chris) who aren't gay, but who liked hanging out together all of the time as freshmen. They confront their friends who refuse to believe that they aren't gay, but it turns out to be a waste of time.
Nick realizes over the course of his college years that he's strickly gay. He said in the first movie that he was bisexual, but after realizing that he never dated women, he finally admits to himself that he is just plain gay.
Debbie, a happy and good-spirited student, is always questioning others. When a freshman, she asks that seminude pictures of women be taken down from men's rooms, but by the time she's ready to graduate, she's happy to have seminude male pictures on display in her room. She assaults poor Sam, who takes it well enough, claiming that all women hate him because he is a white male. "There is no happiness for women in this society," she says in one roundtable classroom discussion, which the others accept without question as being an obvious truth.
After an unsure beginning, Sam becomes the most at peace with himself. "I care far too much about what others think of me," he says with brutal honesty about why he made one of his choices as a freshman. By his senior year, he is president of his fraternity -- most of the group pledge, although one recants later. "I think that I personally have become pretty much what I wanted to become," he says with satisfaction as graduation approaches.
"I'd love to just be happy," says Brandi, an upper middle-class African-American, who has always known her career path would include a good college. "To be happy, you have to have a good job." She drops out for a time, seeking her happiness in, of all places, retail sales at a mall.
With a traditional but nonetheless satisfying ending, the movie tells what happened to each of the students after they graduated. There aren't many surprises, but each of the them has become such a friend by the end that you want to personally wish each of them well.
NOW AND THEN: FROSH TO SENIORS runs 1:29. It is not rated but would be an R for some profanity and sexual discussions. The film would be fine for teenagers and should probably be required viewing for college-bound teenagers and their parents. But even if you aren't in either of these categories, the mesmerizing movie is something well worth seeing.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
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