Freshman Year Trailer: Exclusive Look At Cooper Raiff’s College Rom-Com

For the most part, movies about American kids going to college show their characters having the best years of their life – chaotic and hedonistic, a swirl of parties and hook-ups and new opportunities. But it’s not always as easy as that. In Freshman Year, writer-director Cooper Raiff presents a semi-autobiographical college rom-com about the awkwardness of finding yourself in a new place with new people and not really knowing how to handle it – starring Raiff himself as Alex, a freshman struggling to find his place, until he meets Maggie (Dylan Gelula) at a frat party. Check out the trailer exclusively here:

If all the dorm-rooms, red cups and sports hoodies are key signifiers of your typical college flick, it’s refreshing to see it all from a more outsider perspective. While Alex and Maggie connect one night at the, er, ‘Shithouse’ fraternity (the film’s original title was, indeed, Shithouse), in the aftermath it seems like she’s forgotten all about him – hence a plot to throw another party and try and rekindle their amazing night together. The film was a firm festival favourite, bagging the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW last year – and yes, you did see a four-star rating in the trailer from Empire’s very own John Nugent. For fans of Richard Linklater (think Everybody Wants Some!! meets Before Sunrise, if it took place after the closing moments of Boyhood), Freshman Year is definitely one to have on your radar.

Freshman Year is expected to arrive in UK cinemas later this summer – BYO red cups.