Artists Addiction Records
Press Release
Bookish and newly single Jesse
Fisher (Josh Radnor) is a university admissions counselor in his
mid-thirties living in New York City who returns to his Ohio alma mater
for a retirement dinner honoring Peter Hoburg (Richard Jenkins), his
favorite English professor. A chance meeting on campus with 19-year-old
Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen) — a precocious undergrad who loves classical
music, improv and Twilight — awakens in Jesse long-dormant feelings of
possibility and connection. The pair strikes up a long-distance
epistolary romance, prompting Jesse to return to campus for another
visit. Although Zibby appears beyond her years, the age-difference
between the budding paramours weights heavily on Jesse, who is torn
between moving forward in life, and holding on to the indelible memories
of his own university years. Featuring a rich assortment of peripheral
characters, including a mystically upbeat party animal (Zac Efron), a
brooding young depressive (John Magaro), and a feisty Romantics professor
(Allison Janney), LIBERAL ARTS explores the emotional tug-of-war between
youth and adulthood, as played out on a leafy Midwest campus that is both
Eden-like and tumultuous — and entirely unforgettable.