Liberal Arts

I watched the film Liberal Arts recently, the second feature directed by Josh Radnor (famous for playing Ted Mosby in How I Met Your Mother). I really enjoyed the film and its musings on life and experience. Radnor played the lead character in the film, a 35-year old who has a romantic relationship with a 19-year old college student as he visits his old campus. The film is extremely romantic towards literature and music and art in general, and I get a sense that Radnor himself holds a love for this material, almost to the point of pompousness. This isn't all that surprising to me as his character in HIMYM is frequently pretentious in his interests, quoting Joyce's Ulysses or reciting Dante's Divine Comedy in Italian. 

Liberal Arts turns away from the hilarity of Ted Mosby's prentiousness however and shows it more seriously. There is a great scene where the character Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen) calls him out on being a snob when he criticizes the Twlight novels for being awful literature that is the root cause of all the world's problems. This opens his eyes to how snobby he really is being and it changes him. The film does get a little high and mighty at times, and I feel like Radnor can be a bit of an artistic pomp but he does so with likable charisma. The film has many great characters, but my favorite is the stoner-Hippie performance from Zac Efron who professes that "everything is okay". Radnor's character learns a lot from him, and I think reaches a main theme in the film, that life happens and we can worry about it, or we can learn to love and enjoy the ride.

Below is a wonderful scene from the film where Josh Radnor is introduced to classical music by his romantic interest. His feelings of being lost in the music felt very relatable to me, as I have often indulged in the escapism of music while walking in the city. The language reflects the pompousness of Radnor's writing but also fits in with the themes and the characters. I have to admit that I really enjoyed this film and am starting to wonder if I am as pretentious as the lead character in it.