The Get Together: A Post-College Reunion in Austin Stirs Memories… of Similar Movies

By Liam Lacey

Rating: B-

A coming-of-age comedy set around a suburban Friday night house party in an Austin, Texas, The Get Together is a slender, empathetic take on the post-college doldrums, and the fragile bonds of young friendship and romance.

With a generic lineage going back to American Graffiti and especially, Richard Linklater’s 1993 indie breakthrough Dazed and Confused, the movie checks familiar boxes: Broad slapstick alternating with intimate moments, a wall-to-wall pop music soundtrack, and a fresh-faced cast of semi-stock characters (the misfit, the jock, the princess) who are aging out of their teenaged roles.

The principle structural novelty here from writer/director Will Bakke and cowriter Michael B. Allen follows three overlapping stories in separate chapters. The first of these stories follows needy August (Courtney Parchman), who is still struggling for full-time work and living in a rat-infested apartment, and centring her life on her attractive, employed roommate McCall (Luxy Banner).

When McCall gets dressed up and says she’s going out for a “work thing” on a Friday night, August decides to make some money as a ride-share driver. Her first passenger wants to go to a house party, where August sees her roommate McCall having fun with her fashionista friends. August stays, and in her clumsiness, sets off a series of mishaps that bounce the characters off each other.

A second chapter follows girl-most-likely-to-succeed Betsy (Johanna Braddy) and former football star, Damien (Jacob Artist) who are back in town for Betsy’s parents’ anniversary after two years away in New York. Over a restaurant dinner, a goofball waiter Lucas (Chad Werner) invites them both to the house party. Betsy readily agrees as a chance to catch up with old friends, while Damien — who had secretly planned to propose to her that night —is dragged along.

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

The third chapter follows slacker musician Caleb (Alejandro Rose-Garcia, a.k.a. musician Shakey Graves) the passenger in August’s car, who has just learned the struggling band he’s been playing with since college is about to break up. Caleb is disturbed to discover Betsy is at the party. They used to date, and in the two years since she left town, he hasn’t got over her.

Apart from a few drive-by street scenes capturing neon-lit Austin hot spots, the action bounces in and out of various bedrooms and around the pool, where characters collide, confide, and kiss each other. Moderate suspense is provided when Damien loses his engagement ring, and with the concern that Caleb will cause a scene by pushing himself back in Betsy’s life.

Whether limited by budget or imagination, The Get Together is one of those events that barely gets rolling before it winds up. At 74 minutes, the film has little time for deep character mining and ends up feeling more like a collection of uneven scenes and engaging dialogue riffs rather than a fully realized drama.

Of accidental interest is the way this 2019-shot film already makes yesterday’s hardships look like privileges. Not only are the twenty-somethings of 2021 in a more precarious job market, they don’t even have the luxury of blowing off steam at a house party.

The Get Together. Directed by Will Bakke. Written by Will Bakke and Michael B. Allen. Starring Courtney Parchman, Luxy Banner, Johanna Braddy, Jacob Artist, Chad Werner and Alejandro Rose-Garcia. Available on VOD from May 14.