The premise is not unfamiliar: a bunch of guys head to the shore (in this case, Ocean City, MD) for a week of drinking and trying to get laid. You've got the nice guy who's overlooking the good girl in his attempts to score the class hottie, the kid with a chip on his shoulder, etc. You may think you know how this is all going to play out. One of the things that pleasantly caught me off guard about The Graduates is that, while the set-ups may be recycled, the payoffs aren't necessarily so. Whether or not any of the characters ever actually has sex is less important than what they learn about themselves over the course of a week.

The Graduates owes a lot to indie comedies like Clerks. It's the kind of low-key comedy that's largely driven by dialogue and characterization. Sure, there are moments of raunchy humor, but they're part of an attempt to capture the lost feeling you get when you've just capitulated from high school and have to face the scary prospect of, you know, becoming an adult. There are some moments of surprising poignancy, most notably one in which the resident party girl comes face-to-face with a middle-aged woman who's still living that same lifestyle. Gielen cleverly stages their encounter through a glass window, making it suggest that the young girl is looking into a crystal ball of her life in twenty years.

It's part of the aesthetic of low-budget indies that they will be a little rough around the edges. Maybe even very rough around them. The Graduates is different in that it looks and feels very polished. Gielen makes great use of the Ocean City locations (I know this because I vacation there every summer) and the sound/cinematography are solid. The unknown cast members, including Rob Bradford, Blake Merriman, Nick Vergara, and Mike Pennacchio, also seem very comfortable on camera. They display none of the awkwardness that sometimes accompanies even the most enjoyable homegrown films.

I think the movie could have used a slightly longer intro. We first meet the main characters as they hop in the car for the trip. Knowing a bit more about them early in the game might have helped us to deepen their individual story arcs a little more. The beauty of a movie like, say, The Hangover (which introduces its characters in similar fashion) is that it draws real specifics with only a few key brush strokes; within the first two minutes, you know those guys. Still, I think The Graduates deserves credit for trying to take characterization seriously. This could easily have been just another stupid teen sex comedy, rather than the more ambitious portrait of youth it's trying to be.

The DVD version of the film comes with lots of bonus features, including audio commentary from the director and cast. There's additionally Gielen's 25-minute award-winning short film Deleted Scenes, and a sneak preview of the upcoming sequel Graduates II: Drunker. The original screenplay and an extensive photo gallery can also be found. The highlight, however, is a series of Indie Filmmaking Tips and Tricks, which are both useful and funny, especially the one about making "fake" on-screen blood.