The Case for Acting Liberally

A film that I missed at the Film Festival last year with Josh Radnor's Liberal Arts.  As writer, director and star of Liberal Arts, the film really is his baby and all (well most of) the credit for a very charming film goes to him.

Of course, Radnor has a great cast behind him to back him up.  Radnor plays Jesse, a guy who has just broken up with his girlfriend and appears generally dissatisfied with life, who returns to the University where he had the time of his life to attend the farewell dinner of his second favourite Professor, played by the ever incredible Richard Jenkins.  While there, he encounters three students of note: an idealistic possibly drug addled hippie (played by Zac Efron, amazingly engaging), a tormented literary genius who reminds Jesse of himself (played by John Magaro, who I don't recall seeing before), and a beautiful young student with whom he falls head over heels in love, in the wide eyed doll-like form of Elizabeth Olsen.

From there, the film examines ageing, dating, falling in love, all through the rose tinted glasses of a stunningly beautiful college campus and an always sunny New York.  The incomparable Allison Janney strolls in every so often to deliver some dry sass and, as usual, steals every scene that she is in, but otherwise the film is Radnor's (and occasionally Jenkins') and his journey is a lovely, slow and completely understandable one.

There is not a huge amount more to write about this one.e  It didn't aim to be classic movie literature (well, I  didn't think it was), but it aimed to tell a decent story about a realistic group of people (no explosions nor armies of super-quirky or super-together friends in the background - besides Efron's Nat) and using everyday parts of life - music and books.

Everyone with me at the session was impressed with the movie and walked away with a smile on their face.  Of course, at the start, we were subjected to a person unwrapping about one hundred individually wrapped lollies, and having a dickens of a time doing so as well, which had almost everyone else in the cinema bemused/ready to kill him, but in the end, the overall niceness and lightness of the film ensured noone became homicidal and, in fact, everyone probably left in a happier mood than when they walked in.

Verdict: Liberal Arts is a great little film about growing old and finding meaning.  Sure, it ends on a very... twee kind of note, but that's okay - this is a rom com afterall.  Well done, Mr Radnor!  8 Mothers I Have Met out of 10.