Synopsis
Newly single, 35, and uninspired by his job, Jesse Fisher worries that his best days are behind him. But no matter how much he buries his head in a book, life keeps pulling Jesse back. When his favorite college professor invites him to campus to speak at his retirement dinner, Jesse jumps at the chance. He is prepared for the nostalgia of the dining halls and dorm rooms, the parties and poetry seminars; what he doesn’t see coming is Zibby – a beautiful, precocious, classical-music-loving sophomore. Zibby awakens scary, exciting, long-dormant feelings of possibility and connection that Jesse thought he had buried forever.
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Cast
- Josh RadnorJesse Fisher
- Elizabeth OlsenZibby
- Richard JenkinsProfessor Peter Hoberg
- Allison JanneyProfessor Judith Fairfield
- Elizabeth ReaserAna
- John MagaroDean
- Kate BurtonSusan
- Robert DesiderioDavid
- Zac EfronNat
- Kristen BushLeslie
Recommendations
- 91
Entertainment Weekly
Olsen, moody and apple-cheeked and intellectually avid, proves a true star: She turns being wiser than her years into an authentic generational state. - 63
Slant Magazine
Liberal Arts provides a peek into what makes Josh Radnor tick, and what he cares about outside his mainstream-targeted sitcom. - 63
Rolling Stone
Radnor and Olsen are so funny and touching you want to say happythankyoumoreplease. What you get is frustratingly less. Still, to the movie's refreshingly uncynical credit, you feel for them. - 60
The Hollywood Reporter
A coming-of-middle-age comedy running on somewhat less than a full tank, Liberal Arts possesses enough comedic moments to approach crowd-pleasing status. - 60
Time Out
There's too much going on here - of a winning, thoughtful nature - to dismiss Josh Radnor's back-to-college romance as the nostalgia bath it mainly is. - 50
Variety
This makes the film feel perilously close to widescreen sitcom, as do montages of New York set to Beethoven's Sixth Symphony. - 50
Village Voice
Still, in the central relationship, the writer-director shows an understanding of human interaction that marks his second feature as a quantum leap beyond his stilted debut, "Happythankyoumoreplease." - 50
Time
In its lesser moments, of which there are more, Liberal Arts calls to mind more the spirit of an alumni magazine, so bathed in nostalgia for academia that you expect autumn leaves to flutter down to the theater floor.
