The Top Ten Films of 2013: #8

#8

Afternoon Delight

Usually studios put all of a movie's funniest lines and most memorable moments into the trailer, so that by the time you get around to seeing it, you've already seen the best parts. Jill Soloway's "Afternoon Delight" exemplifies the opposite phenomenon: a great movie whose unfunny-chick-flick preview makes you want to avoid it like the plague. That's a shame, because this is one of the wisest films of the year, knowing and insightful on matters of the heart and the libido. 

Liberal Arts

Josh Radnor of “How I Met Your Mother” wrote, directed, and stars in the new collegiate romantic comedy “Liberal Arts,” about Jesse Fisher, a bibliophilic 35-year-old admissions director in New York who’s invited back to his Ohio alma mater (Kenyon? Oberlin?) by Professor Peter Hoberg, a friend who’s retiring (Richard Jenkins). Since Hoberg asks him on a day that ends in “Y,” he accepts. While he’s there, some current parents who are also friends of Hoberg’s introduce him to their daughter, Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen), an improv trouper who brings Jesse out of his shell by teaching him the cardinal rule of improv: you must say yes to everything.