From the Calgary Underground Film Festival: I Used To Go Here is a 2020 comedy about 35-year-old writer who is invited to speak at her alma matter by her former professor.
Kate Conklin (Gillian Jacobs) is not pregnant, unlike all three of her closest friends. No big deal. She’s also a published author, but her new book is not doing well and her tour has been cancelled. Feeling a little down, she gets a call from her old college mentor and professor David (Jemaine Clement), who invites her to come back to her college and do a reading. She accepts and once there, finds herself drawn back into the campus scene, soaking in the fun at parties and all the assorted troubles that follow.
Written and directed by Kris Rey, I Used To Go Here is a warm-hearted middle-aged-ish crisis story that makes excellent use of Jacobs, who is one of the best at semi-awkward giggle comedy, her stint on Community sharpening her skills for such. This isn’t a big broad swipe looking for long laughs, but rather a small, character-driven visit upon the spiral of a woman on the cusp of something new, even as she reflects on the past.
The comedy here isn’t born from the usual shenanigans of a typical college-themed movie, instead about the power of nostalgia and how the temptation to relive what seems like better days than facing an uncertain future have plenty of laughs along the way. Kate returns to the world she was once deeply immersed within, where hopes and dreams lit up her every day and night, but now seems like a fountain filled with opportunity to rejuvenate her life.
That all might seem rather rote, and sure, the movie isn’t trying hard to veer too far off the expected, but led by so many authentic performances, especially Jacobs, it feels like a re-enactment from the pages of someone’s diary. And she really deserves special mention, tapping into everything we already adore about her while allowing a hint of somberness to weigh her down, truly making Kate a tragically uplifting character.
There are a number of minor plot points, some of it familiar, such as Kate dealing with an ex-fiancé who has moved on (she learns that through social media of course), and her bonding with group of college boys who live in the house she once did, they thankfully not at all the paint-by-numbers party boys one might expect. They are instead intelligent, kind, and interesting young men, most particularly Hugo (Josh Wiggins – who delivers a breakout performance), a guy with a history all his own trying to figure out what it’s all about.
There’s a wonderful sense of humanity to I Used To Go Here that seems to push hard against the conventions of the genre it plops itself in. I really enjoyed how Rey refuses to go big even when the beats feel like that’s where it’s headed. I loved a moment at a lake and a house party that sets up just what you think and then flips the rules. There are a string of moments like this, from a revealing meeting with a young woman (Hannah Marks) bristling with talent to a tender breakdown in the bedroom of one that used to be another’s. This is a movie that starts as one thing before evolving into something much, much more. Highly recommended.