Man, it feels good to be a woman. Don’t know if you
knew, but we’re capable of saving all sorts of men! An aimless actor in GardenState, an aimless greeting card writer in (500) Days of Summer, and now an
aimless admissions counselor in Liberal Arts—all saved by women who inspire and
invigorate them, shaking them out of malaise and into bed. It’s real classy.
And it’s what makes Liberal Arts just another frustratingly repetitive look at
relationships.
OK, I’ll be fairer. Liberal Arts, at least, does not
entirely buy into the manic pixie dream girl suggestion, that a young,
exuberant female can change an older man’s life. By the film’s conclusion, it
kind of rejects that—but only for an older, exuberant female who can change a
similarly aged man’s life. That little tweak, I guess, was enough to satisfy
writer-director Josh Radnor that he had made something unique. He hasn’t.
Liberal Arts, like Garden State and (500) Days of
Summer and all those similar romantic dramas before it, focuses on a dude who
has lost his way in life and the woman who brings him back. This time around,
that guy is the scruffy, unfulfilled Jesse (Radnor), a 35-year-old admissions
counselor at a school in New York City who, after having his clothes stolen
from the laundromat and getting dumped by his girlfriend, decides to attend the
retirement event for his college mentor, Professor Peter Hoberg (Richard
Jenkins), back in Ohio. After his ex snipes, “It’s not my job to make you feel
good anymore,” Jesse realizes that he may have stopped feeling good after college—it’s
only the campus’s greenery that really seems to invigorate him. He skips. He
bounds. He rolls around on the grass. He’s basically a different person, a
drastic change in temperament that’s exacerbated when he meets 19-year-old
Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen), the daughter of some of Hoberg’s friends.
Oh, sweet Zibby! So fresh-faced, so excited about
life! A member of the college’s improv comedy troupe, she’s prone to saying
things like, “Everything in life is basically improvised. … We’re just making
this up as we go,” and her frank honesty touches something in Jesse. After they
run into each other at a party later that night and she literally loosens him up by undoing his tie, some kind of
friendship is born. Before he returns to New York City, she gives him a mix CD
(of classical music, not indie rock; take that, Zach Braff!), he starts sending
her hand-written letters, and there’s a lot of pining and yearning. “The city
becomes unbearably beautiful” when he listens to opera, he writes. “Are people
writing music like that nowadays?” she muses back. It’s all very meet-cute.
Cute. Cute. Cute.
But the cuteness gets complicated when, some weeks
into these exchanges, Zibby makes her intentions clear: “I’d like a gentleman
caller, and I’d like him to be you.” Eegads! Who knew?! Jesse is flabbergasted and
also a little flattered, even though when he does the math of their ages on a
legal pad, he realizes, “When I was 16, she was 0.” Nevertheless, he drives
back to Ohio—and what happens during that return trip effects not only whatever
is going on between him and Zibby, but also how Jesse views himself. Is he
really going to be that guy? And if so, would that be so bad?
Admittedly, Liberal Arts does buck some of the genre’s
conventions, but those decisions seem for show, because the rest of the film is
so much formula. For every time Jesse is more concerned about Zibby’s
well-being than his own, there’s also some elitist conversation about pop
culture (Jesse rips apart the “Twilight” novels, even though they’re never
mentioned by name) and the dressing-down of cynicism (like when he doubts an
old professor’s claim that “people are disappointing”). Lots of time is spent
talking about doing the “right thing,” with Jesse advising, “Guilt
before we act is called morality.” And ultimately, he’s totally given the hero
treatment, exalted by all women he comes into contact with. Such an
intelligent, educated catch! And that scruff really shows that he’s the
serious, bookish type.
So much of Liberal Arts is frustrating because these
characters don’t really have any flaws. Jesse is a do-gooder, savior type,
offering his ear to troubled college student Dean (John Magaro) and listening
to Hoberg’s complaints about retirement. Zibby is genuine and sincere; she just
wants to feel something, as all women
in these kinds of films do. Even stoner Nat (Zac Efron, in a nicely unexpected
turn), who blabbers to Dean about crop circles, advises others that “fortune never
smiles on those who say no”—which he probably stole from a fortune cookie.
But that element of cheeriness denies any
interesting developments for the characters, especially in Hoberg’s subplot; he’s
presented as wanting his old job back and being uneasy in his retirement, but
there’s no resolution there. What the film gets most right, however, is the
absurd humor of the college application process and the on-campus experience.
In the first scene, when Jesse is repeating the same tired advice to applicants,
clichéd gems include, “Have you heard about the meal plan? Fantastic!” and “You
have a campus called New York City, the greatest city in the world!” Similarly
good is when Zibby and Jesse eat in the campus cafeteria, attracting the gossipy
glances of fellow undergraduates.
Those moments are few and far between, though, and
overall Liberal Arts seems aggressively cheery, determinedly lacking in negativity,
and very affirming in its protagonist’s masculine heroism. None of it is a
surprise, and as a result, not much of it is very good, either.
