Liberal Arts (2012)

There are two kinds of people who will really like this movie.  The first are people like me--those who really loved their time in college.  The story takes place on a liberal arts college campus in Ohio (Kenyon College), and if you loved the time that you spent in a similar location you will be biased towards this movie.  The story is one of a man growing up, to become his adult self--if you like those sorts of stories where you finally look in the mirror and wee who you are, you will like this movie.

I loved my college life--when I am back on the campus of the undergraduate institution of my youth, I can almost become that person again.  At least in my mind--once not long ago when I was there a student asked me when I graduated and when I said, his reply was "wow, I wasn't even born then".  Well of course not--I was looking at colleges with my children, and thankfully, I did not yet have any of them when I was an undergraduate.  The message to me was that I was inconceivably old, whereas it seemed like only yesterday that I was in his shoes.

So I am compromised--this is a story set in a place that I am prone to love.  Jesse is a 35-year old living in New York, working in a college admissions office.  He dresses like he did in college, he is always carrying a book, and he isn't quite sure what he is going to do when he grows up (uh oh, that sounds dangerously close to my situation...only I am far older, I have lost my youthful figure, and my book is in my backpack, not in my hand...no wonder I liked this movie).  He goes back to his alma mater for the retirement of his favorite professor, and while he is there, he meets a college student who falls for him--and he for her, although he is deeply disturbed by just how inappropriate the relationship is.  As he grapples with who he is and what is going on with his attraction to a teenager, he emerges a different man.  He grows a little, and more importantly, he is thinking about who he is and who he wants to be.  I only hope it doesn't take my boys this long....