When 30-something Jesse returns to his alma mater for a professor's retirement party, he falls for Zibby, a college student, and is faced with a powerful attraction that springs up between them.
Jesse’s just a bit too apt to come out with eloquent and meaningful speeches at exactly the right moments; and the quirky supporting characters tend towards the indie stereotype.
A perfectly engaging, thoughtful piece perhaps in need of a different voice behind the camera.
In the end, like Radnor himself, Liberal Arts is simply likeable.
What elevates and enhances the film is the casting of the two leads.
Breezy and unobjectionable though Radnor’s film is, it’s a sign of his relative inexperience as a writer that everyone has to wind up telling us what they’ve learnt. For a film that makes the recurring point that a liberal arts education can only get you so far, Liberal Arts comes across as naggingly overeager with its own curriculum.
Harmless but overly self-conscious.
Despite a misjudged ending, Liberal Arts is a decent, heart-on-the-sleeve movie; it pays its audience the compliment of treating us like intelligent people.
You’d do well to take the film’s advice: read a book instead.
B-minus.
It's a simple film in its dramatic construction but complex in the ideas, experiences and emotions it plays on and is the most intelligent, truthful movie about literature, higher education and the life of the mind since the Curtis Hanson film of Michael Chabon's novel Wonder Boys a dozen years ago.
I recommend Liberal Arts, with caveats. I'd be surprised if you didn't enjoy it a lot. But then you'll wonder whether it's quite as liberal as it makes out.
An amusing, thoughtful romcom about love, literature and coming of age. Whatever age.
It lacks filmmaking fireworks but Liberal Arts is a B+ for Josh Radnor: strong writing, great performances (Olsen is the real deal) and a touching, upbeat tale for the big-brained and big-hearted.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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