To hear the phrase “uncertain times” should, at this point, elicit your gag reflex as you ready yourself for endless platitudes and refusals to take responsibility. But “uncertain times” have faced soon-to-be college graduates since before we entered the pandemic, and Kit Zauhar’s 2021 film Actual People knows that all too well. Zauhar’s feature directorial debut, which she also wrote, produced, and stars in, has a profound understanding of the current plights facing our young college graduates while creating an interesting lead character who buries herself in a hole of denial.
Actual People centers on Riley (Zauhar), a biracial Asian-American woman who’s set to graduate from her New York college within the month. Riley, though, fears this change, spending her nights partying with her roommates and friends and meeting Leo (Scott Albrecht), another biracial Asian-American with whom she thinks she has a connection. While others keep pushing Riley towards her end-goal of graduating, she spends her time either pursuing Leo, who lives in her hometown of Philadelphia, or going to bars instead of writing her final papers. Riley feels pressure from school as well as from her roommate Anderson (Fraser Jones) telling her she has to move out by the end of the month. To Riley, though, she’s not an actual person just yet, and these responsibilities frighten her.
Zauhar’s writing is strong, if more reminiscent of the mumblecore independent films that blossomed in the 2000s. The more grounded and cringe-inducing dialogue and situations might not work for everyone, but cringing when Leo lets Riley down easy over and over again leads pretty quickly to laughter and soon pity, especially when Riley’s sister Valerie (Vivian Zauhar) says she hooked up with him. What works particularly well is that Riley is a character who feels extremely real even if her actions don’t always make her likable — she’s human with human flaws. There’s a fear that keeps bubbling up as the film goes on, with Riley’s uncertainty always behind her most irresponsible actions, though not quite articulated until a climactic scene at her parents’ house. Zauhar’s performance is particularly great in this scene, her tears and wails about waiting for a light that never comes to illuminate her future making for a powerful catharsis in the understated film.
Zauhar’s direction mirrors the grounded and intimate feeling of the film, with handheld cameras moving so pointedly that it’s always clear that there’s a camera in the scene. To some, that may break the verisimilitude of the film, and sometimes it does act as a reminder that none of this is real. Most of the time, though, it feels like a realistic experience, combined with the writing and performances. Every young person in this film is someone you probably met on your college campus, for better or worse.
Riley may not be a perfect person, but with the characters Zauhar writes opposite her, she captures some of the worst people we all know. When Riley is at a bar with her friend Katie (Audrey Kang) and Tom (Jackson Crook), the latter two argue over the legitimacy of Asian-Americans receiving Affirmative Action benefits, with Tom’s racism and sexism on full display as he dismisses the points and experiences of Katie. Anderson takes what could be a reasonable request of asking Riley to wear pants around the house and quickly sexualizes her, saying he thinks she wears underwear around the house not for comfortability but to tell him she wants to have sex. Though what we see of Riley’s ex David (Randall Palmer) shows him to be a surface-level good person, we know he fell in love with someone else while he and Riley were dating, which she refers to as emotional cheating. And Riley’s prospects with Leo don’t fare much better, as he is distant and obtuse, never just telling Riley he was only interested in sex with her the night they met. Each of these characters, however much screen time they have, feel fleshed-out, flawed, and real, almost reminding one of the annoying or frustrating people they know in their own life.
Though Riley’s story focuses on the end of her college career, her story is really just beginning. She may have to take a summer class before she can graduate, but her future is bright even if she has no concrete plans. What Zauhar’s film recognizes is that graduating from college is an incredibly daunting endeavor for most; that fear, though, will not consume you. Riley is able to move in with Katie, staying in New York for just a bit longer. She may feel that college is a liminal space between childhood and personhood, but personhood, and living a fulfilling adult life, is something that takes real progress with everyone moving at their own pace. Actual People understands the fear, friends, and flaws of college life, and that sometimes you have to keep falling down, whether by failing a class or crying to your parents, to graduate into adulthood.
