Liberal Arts (2012)

Fresh and Exciting

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Blistering performances.

I went on to watch this film with the expectation that it's just another one of those movies that romanticize and praise a certain style of living that too many movies have already been doing. Though some of them are among my all-time favorite movies, like almost all Woody Allen films, there's some narrow-minded, almost snobbish element in them which suggests that this is the cool lifestyle to be living (by this, I mean being a sarcastic, hating-on-the-new-generation New Yorker who loves literature and philosophy).But Liberal Arts offer various perspectives on life which are never really encouraged or discouraged in the movie. Yes, "you should read books but also go out some time" is the thematic prescription that is given to book-lover viewers, but it is not presented too strongly; it is not the central motive of the movie around which the narrative is constructed, but it is the outcome of a narrative that just happens to occur without a thematic goal for it to reach. Teaching romantics without being a romantic, reading so many books to escape the social sphere, reading too many books to miss on the social sphere, being a conspiracy theorist/stoner, being old but feeling young, being young but wanting to be old; each of these perspectives on life is, while all of them are modestly presented in the film, neither glorified nor looked down upon.Liberal Arts tells a story that is not told with a screamingly loud subtext. It's just a well-presented humble story of which we sadly do not get a lot these days.

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.

Josh Radnor writes, directs and stars in Liberal Arts. He plays Jesse Fisher a 35 year old introverted but bookish and charming nice guy who is an admissions interviewer at a New York City college.Fisher receives a call from his former college professor (Richard Jenkins) who asks him to attend his retirement party at his university in Ohio. While he is there he meets what seems to be a mature 19 year old student, Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen) and both are attracted to each other, she inspires him to love classical music and opera but is hesitant to develop the relationship further because of their age difference. Zibby represents a hope for the future and vitality of youth that chimes with Fisher.He also meets his former English Romantics professor (Allison Janney) who he found inspirational for his love of poetry and literature as a student and later has a very unromantic one night stand with her only to discover she is jaded and has a heart of stone.Zac Efron pops up offering Fisher Zen like philosophy just when he needs it. Fisher also bumps into a depressed student who also reads the books that Fisher read as a student and Fisher feels compelled to reach out to him.Fisher finally meets a bookstore employee who shares the same love of literature he has and they are about the same age.The film is pleasant like Fisher but lacks backbone. Radnor is channelling Woody Allen, well three women fall for him in this movie but the movie lacks the cutting wit and melancholic bite which Allen could easily slip in his films.The film deals with the nostalgia of looking back which both Radnor and Jenkins do in this film. Even I felt a tingle when Jenkins admitted that he has always felt like a 19 year old, mainly because I had a similar thought earlier in the day before I watched this film.However Radnor is not strong enough an actor to keep up with skilled actors like Janney and Jenkins and his romance with Olsen did not look believable to me. A 19 year old would had ditched him as soon as he had a rant about Twilight type slushy vampire books.Some of the plot strands were unresolved, why did Jenkins change his mind about retiring and wanting three more years which the film never again dealt with.

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.