Writer/director Alan Hruska doesn’t hold back on melodrama with Reunion, the story of a group of Yale alumni and members of a secret undergrad society of would-be world-changers who get back together on the tenth anniversary of a friend’s passing to bare their souls and air their grievances in the shiny conference room of NYC lawyer Jake (Brett Cullen). Overflowing with self-serious Big Ideas, Hruska’s ensemble film tackles, via its characters’ confessions and bickering, issues of love, faith, happiness, success, aspirations, self-worth, and the feasibility of change, a Big Chill-ish enterprise whose serious intentions aren’t enough to compensate for the two-dimensionality of its stock archetypes, nor for the fact that their discussions about these topics – all of which are laced with regret, jealousy and longing – generally amount to a lot of hot air. Hruska intends for his material to be insightful but undercuts his grave tone with hoary, histrionic situations and revelations at far too many turns, the only respite from the proceedings’ distinct Psychology 101 feel coming via corniness such as an angry confrontation that devolves into a food fight.

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