The last time writer/director Alexander Payne and actor Paul Giamatti worked together, in 2004’s Sideways, the result was five Oscar nominations — including Best Picture — and a win for the film’s captivating script.
That won’t happen this time.
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| Angus (Dominic Sessa, left) and Professor Hunham (Paul Giamatti) are surprised to discover that the school head cook, Mary (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) has prepared a full-blown Christmas dinner. |
Indeed, the film even feels like a product of the early 1970s, in terms of tone and appearance.
The weak link is David Hemingson’s script.
Payne usually writes or co-writes his films, with memorable results that have included — in addition to Sideways — 2002’s About Schmidt and 2011’s The Descendants.
He should have done so this time.
The premise here, lifted mostly intact from Merlusse, is fine; the execution (alas!) is contrived, clumsy, lethargic and ultimately dull. The result does not deserve its protracted 133-minute length.
The setting is Barton Academy, a venerable boarding prep school that reeks of wealth and boorish entitlement. Giamatti stars as Paul Hunham, a veteran adjunct professor of ancient history. To call him misanthropic is the worst of understatements; Hunham regards his students with undisguised contempt. He isn’t merely stern; he’s downright nasty, routinely belittling his charges as philistines, reprobates, snarling Visigoths and (my favorite) “fetid layabouts” unfit to uphold Barton’s longstanding dedication to tradition and academic rigor.
That such descriptions are entirely accurate, with respect to many of the privileged little snots, is entirely beside the point. Hunham’s unceasing torrent of verbal abuse — delivered by Giamatti, it must be admitted, with considerable flourish — is an immediately insurmountable barrier that makes it impossible to sympathize with the man, as the story proceeds.
More to the point, although Hunham knows his field inside and out — and loves to hold forth with needlessly highbrow language — he apparently can’t communicate it. If everybody save one member of his class receives a grade of D or F on the semester final exam, then clearly Hunham is a terrible teacher. Bearing that in mind — as an adjunct professor lacking tenure, who can be fired at will — enraged wealthy parents would have demanded his departure long ago.
And they’d certainly have gained the support of Barton’s snootily officious headmaster (Andrew Garman, appropriately smarmy), who loathes Hunham.
