LIBERAL ARTS (2012)

“Why do I like this guy so much?”

“ Because he's likable.”

These lines from Josh Radnor’s sophomore effort as a writer-director, sums up his appeal wonderfully well. He has a very likable screen persona. He’s a dork, he’s geeky, slightly snobbish (but in an endearing way) and when he’s talking with someone, it’s like he almost forgets the rest of the world exists. This is what made his character Ted Moseby, from the hit sitcom HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, so popular, because he’s an adorable everyman we can all relate to. All of these characteristics come to the fore in LIBERAL ARTS, to make the movie a delightful treat to watch.

Ted, I mean Josh, plays a jaded, slightly aimless thirty-five year-old New York City college admissions officer Jesse Fisher who is called back to his alma mater Kenyon College, to attend the farewell dinner of one of his favorite teachers, Prof. Peter Hoberg (Richard Jenkins). While there, he meets Elizabeth (Elizabeth Olsen), or as everyone calls her, Zibby, a 19 year-old drama student at the college, and there’s some sort of connect. She gives him a mixtape of classical music, and they bond over their shared love of Vivaldi and Beethoven. His relationship with her almost makes him believe he never left college at all, as if he’s still there on the incredibly beautiful campus, reading books all day long, having interesting conversations with like-minded people and basically revelling in the sense of infinite impending opportunities that seems inherent in the very air of a good college. Life after college never quite met Jesse’s expectations.

 Prof Hoberg too, seems loath to leave the college at which he has taught for thirty-seven years. He likens his condition to a long-time jailbird who can’t handle life on the outside and so commits a petty crime to get thrown back into jail. When Jesse asks him if he thinks the college is a prison, Hoberg replies, “Any place you don’t leave is a prison.” Jesse also meets other students like the troubled genius Dean (John Magaro), who seems intent on being a genius who died young, and the campus weirdo-aphorist Nat (Zac Efron) who utters pearls of wisdom like “Be love, man”, as well as Jesse’s favorite teacher Judith Fairfield (Allison Janney), who seems a little too morose and cynical to have been a successful teacher of British Romantic poetry. Existentialists might have been more appropriate.

The film is a fantastic evocation of college life and the pains of growing up. Jesse’s character is based on a character stereotype often seen in Sundance indies, the articulate man-child. Through certain events portrayed in the film, Jesse realizes he’s not 19 anymore, although like Prof Hoberg says, “Nobody feels like an adult. It’s the world’s dirty secret.” I suppose the key to growing up is acceptance, realizing at some point that this is your life, and the sooner you stop thinking about hypothetical scenarios, the sooner you can start off on the road to happiness. In that sense, the film can be called a chronicle of Jesse’s journey to the realization that he’s thirty-five and he does not have access to a time machine. The screenplay is wonderfully astute, funny and zips along at a nifty speed, ending at a wonderfully appropriate 97 mins. The acting is uniformly fantastic especially from Richard Jenkins and Elizabeth Olsen. You can’t go too wrong with Western classical music, and for a long duration of the film, Jesse and Zibby correspond about their shared love for opera, while their favorite pieces play in the background. Massenet and Mozart doing their thing, always adds something to a film.

Like MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, WONDER BOYS and THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, this film is also a tribute to bibliofilia, and the film is chock-full of references to everything from William Blake to vampire chick-lit (the book is never mentioned by name, but it’s not difficult to put in an educated guess). Almost everyone in the film carries a book under their arm when walking, and I can see why. It’s comforting to know you have a book in case you don’t have anyone to talk to.

A beautiful little gem of a film, embodying (as Richard Corliss said) the five W’s of good modern indies, warm, winning, wise, wacky and wonderful. 7.5/10.