麻豆传媒

A series of one-liners captures the postgrad鈥檚 bittersweet existence in The PhD Movie, written by Jorge Cham and directed by Vahe Gabuchian

The PhD Movie written by Jorge Cham, directed by Vahe Gabuchian. For screenings see

鈥淟ET me tell you how this works,鈥� says the curmudgeonly Professor Smith, giving a would-be graduate student the benefit of his wisdom. 鈥淏eing a PhD student and working with a professor is a lot like a marriage. The whole thing lasts five to seven years, and 50 per cent end in a bitter divorce.鈥�

So begins , dreamed up by Jorge Cham and based on the comics he began drawing in 1997 while studying for a doctorate in robotics at Stanford University in California. The comics playfully expose the inner workings of academia 鈥� or as Cham puts it, 鈥渓ife (or lack thereof) in graduate school鈥�.

The movie was shot at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and most of the characters are played by real-life students or researchers. 鈥淲hat other movie features not one, but two MacArthur 鈥楪enius鈥� Award recipients?鈥� boasts the .

Despite the film鈥檚 light-hearted approach, it was with some trepidation that I settled down to watch it. I was uneasy about revisiting the more angst-ridden aspects of my own PhD years, spent hunched over a microscope, or worse, pondering the futility of my research and/or life. I needn鈥檛 have worried.

Perhaps my feelings were spared because the film mainly uses one-liners from the comics to tackle the anxieties and oddities of earning a doctorate. 鈥淚s that food for us?鈥� asks the protagonist, an unnamed graduate student. 鈥淣o, it鈥檚 for the special relativity seminar, but they鈥檙e always losing track of time,鈥� replies his mentor, Mike Slackenerny, the eternal grad student. Or maybe it鈥檚 because I got my doctorate in the UK, so the American way of doing things didn鈥檛 always resonate.

Rather than reviving old stresses, I found the film fun and surprisingly upbeat. It was a relief to see scientists on screen that do not resemble James Bond villains. And hats off to K. Zachary Abbott, normally an IT manager at Caltech, for his brilliant portrayal of the aloof Professor Smith.

Produced on a shoestring, the movie has an amateur feel and doesn鈥檛 match the brilliance of the science-themed TV comedy, The Big Bang Theory. But it is sure to win a devout following among its target audience of researchers 鈥� not such a small demographic as you might think. The US alone churns out 35,000 PhDs in science and engineering each year.

They might empathise with the film鈥檚 other main character, 鈥減erfect grad student鈥� Cecilia, who staples Taco Bell job application forms to the abysmal undergraduate papers she marks. In spite of the romcom overtones, the film鈥檚 one-liners tackle the deeper issues that plague a life in research 鈥� the dire prospects higher up the academic food chain and the futility of many projects. 鈥淚 thought I was going to be working on a big problem. Now I feel like I鈥檓 working on a sub-problem of a sub-problem of sub-problem,鈥� says our hero.

After years of watching the on-screen travails of would-be medics, it鈥檚 good to see aspiring scientists get more time in the spotlight.