Nursery University - Movie Review - 2008

Competing for The American Dream Starts Early

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Nursery University - Movie Review - 2008

Will Juliana Be Accepted?

Variance Films

Nobody seems to know who first spoke the oft quoted comment, “Give me a child for the first seven years, and you may do what you like with him afterwards,” but it seems NYC parents have adopted it as their credo--especially with regard to securing placement for their children in exclusive nursery schools. In fact, if you're to take those parents who appear in the documentary Nursery University as typical, NYC moms and pops surmise that their kids’ futures are determined as soon as their toddlers trundle off to nursery school, or pre-kindergarten. Long before they reach age seven, opportunity is over and done with.

Getting On The Fast Track

Feeling that sort of pressure to provide the best for their beloved offspring, NYC parents behave like sharks in a feeding frenzy when their children become age-eligible for the very few admission spots to top nursery schools known as feeder schools for top primary schools which are known as feeder schools to top high schools which are known as feeder schools for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia and the other Ivies known as feeder schools for positions of power around the world.

Nursery University tracks a carefully selected cross section of interesting NYC parents as they try to fast track their kids to living their larger-than-life notion of the American dream. we've got an upper East Side moneyed duo, a Greenwich Village twosome, a pair of Ivy League yuppies, a single mother of twins, and a couple of color--all competing for the same few spots in the success-oriented schools. The parents are from different backgrounds and have different means, but they're all equally committed to getting that number one placement for their kids.

The Application Process is Crazy

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Variance Films

Each school shown in the film distributes but a limited number of application forms, which are available only upon request by telephone, only one day per year. On the day applications are distributed, all the parents spend all day on their phones, using repeat speed dial to try to get through the busy signals to each school to request an application for their child. They enlist family, friends and nannies to do the same. If they don’t manage to get through in time to get an application, they must settle for being wait listed for an application.

Sound insane? That’s only the beginning. To strategize on what to write on the application forms and how to prepare for the requisite interviews and/or auditions, many hire coaches for thousands of dollars. They rehearse, costume themselves, try to get the upper hand through their social contacts or any means--the headmistress of one school says she’s even been approached as exited the shower in her gym.

Of course, the film reveals that this frenzy is all about the parents and their ambitions. That’s right: their ambitions. The kids are too young to know that their futures are being shaped as their parents show off how they can build with blocks or play with other kids. They haven't yet learned to compete with each other like sharks in a feeding frenzy, and they can’t put in their two cents about whether their little personas will find a better fit in a school helmed by a Chanel-clad headmistress who reeks of discipline or one who presents a rounder profile and softer approach.

Is It About the Parents or the Kids?

As viewers, we do get to see which kids get picked and which don’t, and to observe their parents’ responses. In fact, the film focuses primarily on the parents and their behavior during the application process, revealing how they handle the extreme stress that their seeking the fast track trip heaps upon them and, in some cases, on their relationships. Nobody splits up, but one couple does split for the suburbs and a more accommodating school system.

How the sought-after schools make their decisions isn't shown in Nursery University, probably because the filmmakers couldn't gain access to those hardcore discussions about who’s fast track-worthy and who’s not. If that’s what some people want from this film -- for it to be a primer to fast track success -- they're bound to be disappointed. City parents who are looking for reasonable alternatives for their kids aren't given much information, either. But in pointing out the lengths to which NYC parents go to place their kids in good private schools, the film does successfully underscore what we all know about city public schools: that they're faced with many problems for which there are few solutions being proffered.

Nursery University doesn't proselytize, but in its entertaining, character-driven verite style, it raises awareness and will hopefully stimulate debate and action about a pressing social issue -- the universal right of children to excellent education and how that can best be accomplished -- before we fast track ourselves into some future nonfiction version of Idiocracy.

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Film Details:

Nursery University (2008)

Directed by: Marc H. Simon and Matthew Makar
Running Time: 90 min.
Release Date: April 24, 2009 (limited)
Parents Guide: Advisory for content
Distributors: Variance Films

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