Liberal Arts (2012)

Excellent but underrated film

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Liberal Arts was written and directed by Josh Radnor, primarily known for his role on the CBS TV sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Radnor's protagonist here is Jesse Fischer, a 35 year old college admissions officer at an unnamed NYC institution of higher learning, presumably NYU. Radnor goes very light on Jesse's backstory, only cluing us in that he's dissatisfied with his job (the opening sequence features Jesse speaking to a coterie of unseen students about the pitfalls of the admission process) and that he's in the last throes of an unsatisfying relationship with a girlfriend.The inciting incident occurs when Jesse receives a call from his former English professor, Peter Holberg (Richard Jenkins), who invites him up to his Alma mater to attend the professor's retirement ceremony. Jesse drives up to the school (the scenes were filmed at Radnor's Alma mater, Kenyon College) in Ohio. At this point you might likely presume that Radnor's protagonist is based on autobiographical material.The principal thrust of the story concerns Jesse's relationship with Zibby, a 19 year old student at the school and daughter of Professor Holberg's friends played by a miscast Elizabeth Olsen--who was 23 during filming and looking much more mature than a co-ed in her sophomore year. After initially meeting, the two, both literature mavens, agree to correspond through regular snail mail. In a series of montages and voice overs, Zibby clues Jesse into the wonders of classical music (for some reason while growing up Jesse never became familiar with any well known classical composers), and he ends up traipsing about NYC enraptured with familiar sites while listening to noted classical music compositions on his headphones.Eventually the mismatched couple have a disagreement over taste in literature: Jesse feels Zibby is wasting her time indulging her inner aesthete by embracing a "Twilight-like" vampire trilogy; Zibby on the other hand makes no bones about enjoying such mindless but entertaining "literature." The dark moment at the end of the Second Act occurs when the earnest Jesse refuses to sleep with Zibby, who reveals she is a virgin.Radnor injects a series of secondary characters and subplots to perhaps spice things up a bit considering how thin his main plot between Jesse and Zibby turns out to be. Jesse meets Nat (Zac Efron) a non-student hipster who teaches Jesse how to loosen up. And then there's Dean (John Magaro), a depressed, bipolar student who Jesse saves from killing himself, after he ingests a gaggle of unidentified pills. Finally, there's Professor Judith Fairchild, who Jesse reveres as his number one professor, from his heady days as an undergraduate. Fairchild invites Jesse back for a one-night stand but cynically kicks him out of her home afterward, deriding him for not being manly enough and as world- weary as she.Somehow Radnor would like us to be impressed with Jesse's "growth," although it's difficult to perceive such progress when we learn so little about his protagonist in the first place. As it turns out, Jesse at film's end meets another woman, Ana (Elizabeth Reaser), a bookstore employee and lover of books (just like Jesse), and they walk into the sunset happily ever after (Ana is strictly there as Jesse's love interest with little to no character development).In the end, the nature of Radnor's vanity project becomes clear. Jesse really was a mensch all along, only peripherally led off course by the allure of a nubile 19 year old co-ed. The earnest Jesse rejects having "casual" sex which would of course have dire consequences for the perky but immature Zibby. Throw in playing the mentor to the confused Dean, a buddy to the semi-zany Nat and a disillusioned but now world wise "Benjamin" to Professor Fairchild's "Mrs. Robinson," and one is left with another typical indie replete with the obligatory glacial pacing and comatose narrative.

It is a brilliant screenplay which engulfs the apprehensions a teenager, a middle-aged man and a retired person feels and how all of them are caught in a similar storm. It is complimented by appreciable acting work by Josh Radnor and Elizabeth Olsen and in a small but noticeable role by Zac Efron as Nat the carefree guy.The dialogues in the movie are something you can quote or eventually find on Instagram or Tumblr in a black and white filter. The movie makes you reflect upon your own life and makes you think about how music and books affect you.All in all its a great film which you can watch for a good time and then re-watch for a different positive feeling.

OK, this one is awful. Which is strange, because the acting is very good, the characters well played (although sometimes a bit over the top) and the struggle of a 35 year old falling in love with a cute 19 year old is very real. But something happened in the movie which totally broke it in my opinion. Hence, the spoiler: when 19 y/o Elizabeth invites Jesse to have sex although she's still a virgin, he refuses because of some moral dilemma's. A very real problem if you take the age difference into account. She was still in diapers when he went to high school. And, well, she's still a virgin. Jesse tells her that sex is a big deal and that he cannot do it because he learned in the years after college how special it is. Zibby (Elizabeth) is hurt, cries because of his refusal. I think it was the very best scene in the movie, because it showed an incredible precious en vulnerable moment. I loved it!But then the whole film got totally ruined by the next scene: Jesse meets his old English teacher, forms for some reason suddenly a very good connection with her and finds himself in bed with her after wards. For some reason I cannot begin to fathom he doesn't give a thing about the age difference anymore. Apparently, everything he just told Zibby was a complete and utter lie. His moral dilemma non-existent. His feelings for Zibby totally gone. I just couldn't watch it any further. I don't believe I've ever been any more turned off by a movie than this one. It's horrible. Don't watch it. It's total crap. Don't waste your time. Please.

I've got a very strange feeling about it. It's ... Somehow I just cannot write it down with exact words. So pure the love is. And so vulnerable it is as well. For the enthusiasm for classical literature and music, they fall in love;and they finally broke up for it. Well, it seems they just hold different opinion about Vampire books and sex, but that traces back to the traditional view of things. Dream is dream after all. It gave me a nice dream and broke it in the end, without a single warning. All of that happened so fast and in one blink they suddenly broke up and the movie ended. I just cannot stand this. For the nice dream, it's "7", but for the cruel ending, I'd cut it a little bit.