Mercifully Short Review by Jonathan Empson

Jesse (Josh Radnor) is 35 and lives in New York, where he reads continuously and is admired from afar by a woman with a large forehead. But Jesse still yearns for college, the only place where “you can tell people you’re a poet and not get punched in the face”. So when he’s invited back to his leafy Ohio campus for his professor’s retirement dinner, he burns rubber to attend. There, he meets 19-year-old student Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen), and despite her name and slightly undersized forehead, they’re instantly attracted (hmm, rubber). But the perpetually earnest Jesse is racked with guilt over their difference in age (and possibly forehead size). This well-observed and amusing comedy-drama covers all the bases on the theme of wanting to wind the clock back – or forward. Try to ignore the fact that the writer/director/star also appears in How I Drained the Joy From Your Mother.

8/10

Released October 11, 2012.

Jonathan Empson’s TV script Chromewas nominated for an AWGIE in 2010.

His recently completed historical drama-comedy feature Leonardo’s War is in circulation, and his black comedy-thriller Get Out of Here has been optioned.

He is represented by Rick Raftos Management.