'Try Harder!' Review: Endearing, Alarming Doc on Senior-Year College-Application Hope and Heartbreak The agonies and ecstasies of a high-achieving majority Asian-American senior class during a cutthroat college application season. Jessica Kiang, provided by FacebookTwitterEmail Running time: Running time: 84 MIN Courtesy of Sundance Institute “You get used to feeling mediocre,” says one of the merely very bright students in a school full of what he considers “geniuses.” “Try Harder,” Debbie Lum’s simultaneously charming and chastening documentary on the senior class in Lowell High — the majority Asian-American, top-ranked school in San Francisco — takes its cue from its lovable, dorky, high-achieving subjects and mostly remains in a cheerful register, heroizing a group rarely celebrated in high school movies: the good kids.