''Try Harder!'' is a 2021 American
documentary film, directed and produced by
Debbie Lum. It follows students at
Lowell High School as they apply and hope for admission to the college of their dreams.
It had its world premiere at the
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,6 ...
on January 30, 2021. It was released on December 3, 2021, by
Greenwich Entertainment.
Synopsis
Students at Lowell High School apply and hope for admission to the college of their dreams.
Release
The film had its world premiere at the
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,6 ...
on January 30, 2021. It also screened at the
Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is an annual international event dedicated to the theatrical exhibition of non-fiction cinema.
The festival is a program of the Center for Documentary Studies, a non-profit, 501(c)(3) at Duke University ...
on June 2, 2021. It also screened at
AFI Docs
The AFI Docs (formerly Silverdocs) documentary film festival is an American international film festival created by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel. It is held every year in Silver Spring, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Starte ...
in June 2021. In August 2021,
Greenwich Entertainment acquired distribution rights to the film. It was released on December 3, 2021. The film also aired on ''
Independent Lens
''Independent Lens'' is a weekly television series airing on PBS featuring documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of ''Independent Lens'' were hosted by Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrence ...
'' on
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of ed ...
on May 2, 2022.
Reception
Box office
In its opening weekend, the film earned $27,815 from 5 theaters.
Critical response
''Try Harder'' received positive reviews from film critics. On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...
it holds a 97% approval rating based on 33 reviews, with an average rating of 7.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Straightforward and disarmingly, charmingly sincere, Try Harder! follows college-bound students through their final year of high school".
References
External links
*
* {{IMDb title, 13648160
2021 films
2021 documentary films
American documentary films
Documentary films about high school
Documentary films about high school in the United States
PBS original programming
2020s English-language films
2020s American films