Cooper Raiff stars as an immature student awkwardly adjusting to college life – and the idea that love might not be easy to come by
![Freshman Year review – mortifying mumblecore look at a student hookup](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6d5b36aae138dd16a4fb2c38a2d7b03e27aaebf5/414_0_7496_4500/master/7496.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctcmV2aWV3LTMucG5n&enable=upscale&s=eada0cb1ab21dad892d97bcdcf483cb8)
Cooper Raiff is the 24-year-old
Actor, writer and director making his feature debut with this intimate microbudget feature in the mumblecore style; it was a prize winner at the 2020 online SXSW festival, which led to Jay Duplass shepherding this wider release. Alex (played by Raiff) is a first-year college student who is desperately shy and has a childhood soft toy in his room. (In the first scene, Alex imagines this creature speaking to him silently and derisively in subtitles, a gag and a style of
comedy not developed in the rest of the film.) Alex also has a mortifying habit of bursting into tears when he telephones his mother and sister, whom he misses desperately.
One night at a party, Alex has a wonderful romantic connection with supercool Maggie (Dylan Gelula); they have sex and hang out all night, and poor Alex thinks that this could be a wonderful relationship. But the next day, Maggie is weird and distant around him (she has already told him that she broke up with her high-school boyfriend because of her many infidelities), and Alex has to consider the possibility that this is what hooking up is like. Maybe there is no emotional content – or maybe people in their freshman year just aren’t ready for it.