US 2021, 85 min Director DEBBIE LUM
“When you first come in from middle school, you’ll want to cry.” These words, spoken by a wizened Lowell High School student at the beginning of Debbie Lum’s delightful Try Harder!, describe the school’s well-deserved reputation as San Francisco’s number one ranked public high school and academic pressure cooker. Inside the classroom and at home, we follow Sophia, Shea, Rachael, Alvan, and Ian as they try their hardest to attract the attention of their “dream” school (invariably, Stanford). Striving for college admission is not simply a matter of academic achievement. Each must grapple with challenging issues, from tense family dynamics to anti-Asian and anti-Black discrimination. When it comes time for the students to find out what their college fates will be, our hearts go out to them; not because we care so much where they’ll end up, but because we’ve grown to admire who they are becoming on the journey there.