Back To School (Movie Thoughts: I Used To Go Here)

I rally liked a lot of Kris Rey’s ‘I Used To Go Here,’ because I am always nostalgic about my time in school, especially high school, and as a matter of fact, most of my closest friends these days are my high school friends.  In the film, Kate (Gillian Jacobs) goes back to her college to speak. She has jst written and published a book, but its initial sales have been disappointing, and her publisher has published a book tour. But at her campus, she is a star – she is the one who made it as a writer. She ends up at the bed and breakfast across from the house where she used to live, and lives her old college life, if only for a couple of days. It is bittersweet, and I remember having that feeling of uncertainty, when you still have that idealistic attitide in your heart but it is slowly being crushed by reality. Jacobs is great, awkward funny but you know there is a lot of intelligence (and feelings) behind those eyes. She finds kinship with the college students instead of the adults, who are portrayed here as somewhat creepy. There’s a sequence in here that is a turn off, though where she and some of the kids go on some kind of adventure, and it felt juvenile compared to the rest of the film. Without that, the film would have been much better.

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