Review: Documentary 'Try Harder!' takes viewers inside a high school for overachievers, and suggests that college admissions isn't the only thing in life

Director Debbie Lum strikes a careful balance in her documentary “Try Harder!” — to celebrate the high-achieving students in one of America’s competitive high schools, while raising thorny questions about the competing that happens there.

Lowell High School in San Francisco is one of the most selective schools in the country, designed to teach STEM to the city’s best students and getting them into the best colleges. Importantly, the majority of students there are Asian Americans, often children of first-generation immigrants who, as the movie shows, fulfill the stereotype of the “tiger mom.”

Lum concentrates mostly on five teens, achieving a cross-section of the student body. Three of them are Asian American, one is white, and one is the daughter of a Black woman and a long-absent white father. Through them, the movie talks about the issues of race in the college-admission game — how some schools view Asian students as robotic test-taking machines, or how the biracial girl, Rachael, hears casually racist comments from her rival classmates.

Lum’s film also makes a strong argument that a school like Lowell, by being so laser-focused on college admissions, denies their kids the thing some colleges want most: A well-rounded life. There are a lot of extracurricular activities shown in the film — one boy, Alvan, discovers he enjoys dance class, while Rachael edits the school newspaper — but it’s forcefully implied that those are second-string behind the STEM work.

“Try Harder!” delves into these issues, but keeps the focus on the students, who are far more than the sum total of their application essays or the number of Ivy League schools that rejected them. Leaving the film, you can’t help but hope they learn more at college than the coursework.

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‘Try Harder!’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 24, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Not rated, but probably PG-13 for language. Running time: 85 minutes.

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This review ran previously on this site on January 30, 2021, when the movie premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.