Rent Liberal Arts (2012)

Liberal Arts review by George Hooper - Cinema Paradiso

Liberal Arts serves as a fitting follow up to director Josh Radnor's debut feature Happythankyoumoreplease as it deals in the same thematic currency as Radnor continues to exploit the idea of a man stuck thinking like a boy, a man in swift need of a good kicking. However he makes Liberal Arts that much better by making this discovery poetic and relatable unlike the previously mentioned moreplease.

The film follows Jesse (Radnor), a man skirting around academia without actually taking part. an admissions officer who desires his college years back when he debated poets and philosophers and had the time of his life. When he meets Zibby (Elisabeth Olsen), a student at his old alma mater he sees himself and can’t help but feel a connection that might reignite his college days.

Olsen is delightful as the old beyond her years Zibby as she shows the depth of her character and her air of intelligence while still making her susceptible to the kind of young naive ideals Jesse still clings to. Radnor is perfectly suited to Jesse, a guy still dealing in true love and the strive to be a better man, where everything is black and white and his life after college hasn’t been a complete waste of time. Radnor makes us believe the lies Jesse tells himself everyday.

Radnor has proved himself a smart writer and director and Arts more than proves that but the film really shows itself in the way it sets up this wayward relationship, in how each of us can understand that need to feel younger and older at the same time and how these two can find that in each other. Zibby and Jesse are wildly wrong but thats kind of whats right about the film in the first place.

Radnor has crafted a love story not so much about the way it turns out but who it turns a person into, how we learn from people, your teachers, your friends and the ones you love the most. Olsen clearly has a bright future ahead of her but now I think that Hollywood has a place for Radnor after How I Met Your Mother comes to an unfortunate end.