Liberal Arts: promising, but hollow

I liked so much about Liberal Arts that I wondered why I felt so unsatisfied leaving the theater. I finally realized that the central character just didn’t work for me, making an otherwise good movie into a hollow one.

Liberal Arts is written and directed by TV sitcom star Josh Radnor, who also plays the lead character, Jesse, a college admissions officer in NYC.  Jesse is now 35 and adrift.  He returns to his old college to speak at the retirement of his favorite professor, falls back in love with college life and meets a spirited 19-year-old coed.  As Jesse examines where he is in his life, he is book ended by his world weary professors and by the naive young students that he meets.

That’s a promising premise and the very well written supporting characters provide some funny and thoughtful moments.  Richard Jenkins is brilliant as a man grappling with the end of his career, and Alison Janney has some delicious moments as a very tough broad whose expertise is Romantic literature.  Elizabeth Olsen is very good as the coed, and Zac Efron is downright hilarious as a college age stoner dude.

But it comes down to a main character that has it pretty good, but resists acting like a grownup.  He doesn’t get credit from me for figuring it out at least thirteen years too late.  The movie wants to give him credit for that, and for a “noble” decision that is implausible.

The Wife liked it, though.