Sundance review: 'Try Harder!' celebrates the teens at one of America's top high schools, while raising questions about the stress of the college-admissions process.

‘Try Harder!’

★★★1/2

Appearing in the U.S. Documentary competition of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Can be streamed through the festival digital portal on Monday, February 1. Running time: 84 minutes.

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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.