Liberal Arts Information

Liberal Arts is an American comedy-drama film. The second film directed by, written by, and starring Josh Radnor, it tells the story of 35-year-old Jesse (Radnor) who has a romantic relationship with Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen), a 19-year-old college student. The film premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in January 2012.

Plot

Jesse Fischer (Radnor) is a 35-year-old college admissions officer from New York City who loves literature and language. He receives a call from Peter Holberg (Jenkins) inviting him to his alma mater in Ohio to attend his retirement ceremony. While having dinner with Peter, Jesse meets 19-year-old Zibby (Olsen), a drama sophomore and the daughter of Peter's friends. After a friendly conversation, they part ways.

After the retirement dinner, Jesse stumbles upon a dorm party where he runs into Zibby. They agree to have coffee together the next day. He spends the afternoon with Zibby, and they walk around the campus discussing life, books and music. He also encounters his old romantics teacher, Prof. Fairfield (Janney). Before he leaves, Zibby asks to stay in touch and they become pen pals.

Zibby invites him back to see him. Jesse has concerns about the 16-year age gap but decides to secretly visit her. They spend the weekend together. However, they are caught by Peter who warns Jesse about not living in the past and growing up.

Zibby asks Jesse to stay for the night and admits it would be her first time. Jesse declines and leaves. Zibby goes to a party and starts kissing a classmate. Jesse runs into Fairfield and has a one night stand with her.

Jesse returns to New York where he meets and starts dating Ana (Reaser), a librarian with a similar love for books. Jesse later apologizes to Zibby. She says she understands that what Jesse did was the right thing. The film ends with Jesse embracing the idea of growing old with Ana.

Cast

• Jesse Fisher - Josh Radnor
• Zibby - Elizabeth Olsen
• Prof. Peter Hoberg - Richard Jenkins
• Prof. Judith Fairfield - Allison Janney
• Dean - John Magaro
• Ana - Elizabeth Reaser
• Susan - Kate Burton
• David - Robert Desiderio
• Nat - Zac Efron
• Leslie - Kristen Bush
• Vanessa - Ali Ahn
• Eric - Ned Daunis
• Robert - Gregg Edelman

Filming

The film was shot at Kenyon College, Radnor and Janney's alma mater, throughout the summer of 2011.

Reception

The film received most positive reviews receiving a 69% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with sixty six positive reviews. Writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert called the film "an almost unreasonable pleasure" and gave it a 3 and a half out of 4 star rating. On Metacritic, reception was mixed, with Liberal Arts holding a 55/100 score based on 24 reviews. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly praised the performances of the leads and gave the picture an A- rating.