Tenure

You know those movies featuring a total loser who's doing so bad that it actually becomes embarrassing? They're probably aimed at making us feel better about ourselves, the real losers, out there in that strange dimension called reality-land, trying to cheer us up that every loser can strike a happy ending and somehow, thanks to Hollywood magic, turn winner again... Well, "Tenure" is one of those, with the relatively fresh twist that our "hero" is a college teacher. He's great at teaching, but not really good at anything else. His students love him, but his colleagues hate him. Plus, his best friend falls into the category of "With friends like that, who needs enemies?" It's got heart, though, and though this film is by no means guaranteed to knock your socks off, if the same thing can be said of you, I mean, the "heart" thing, then you might like it. Especially if you've ever been in a situation trying to figure out how to get through to members of the younger generation, or you believe in Bigfoot, or you happen to like Gretchen Mol...

"Tenure" is a comedy about college professors. It has its fair share of problems, mainly that it has a really weak (in some cases false) description of college life for professors. And its hard to call this a comedy.

The jokes are very sophomoric, you may laugh a little bit, but these jokes are for the lowest common denominator. I found it a very odd mix, since generally movies about academic professors are supposed to be more intelligent. Do not mistake this movie as intelligent. David Koechner (who I am generally not a big fan of) is in the main comedic role, he crosses the line from professor to student, and his jokes cross the line from decent to unacceptable.

That aside, the rest of the movie is a pretty good exploration of a smart, but insecure, 30-something guy. Luke Wilson is his usual, likable self, and I looked forward to the resolution for his character.

"Tenture" is not the smart, funny academic film that I was expecting (and that I think it was supposed to be), but I found a bit of myself in Luke Wilson's character and I was smiling at the end. If you ignore the promise of high comedy, this film can be enjoyed.

Charlie Thurber (Luke Wilson) is an English professor at a small, New England college. Although his students love and learn from him, his possible tenure is in doubt. This is because of the "publish or perish" unwritten law that is prevalent in American academia. So far, Charlie is having trouble getting his essays into an admired journal. To complicate things, his father is in an extended care facility nearby, due to early dementia, but, Charlie is not visiting him often enough. This has angered his sister and upset his dad, who was also a prof and likes to converse with his son. A colleague, Jay (David Koechner), an unorthodox science instructor in search of a bigfoot-type local monster, is also up for tenure. Now, the dean lures a Yale-educated English academic, Elaine Grasso (Gretchen Mol) to the department, further complicating Charlie's quest for tenure. Jay suggests that the two males mildly "sabotage" Elaine's adjustment to the school, by arranging to make her look bad in front of others, especially the dean. This involves everything from implicating her in a "cola" theft in the staff room to questioning her school loyalty at the college basketball game, where Elaine inadvertently sat on the opposing team's side. But, wait, does Charlie really want to drive Elaine away, since she's so smart and pretty and he's single? For those who love comedy-romance, here is another sweet view. Wilson's dry, understated humor is always welcome while Mol is a lovely romantic interest. The rest of the cast, including Koechner, are wonderfully supportive. The beautiful east coast college campus will surely bring sighs of admiration and the costumes, script, photography, and steady direction are quite fine as well. Get Tenure, therefore, all you usual fan suspects.

This film was a delight to watch, but did get slow at parts. At parts you did feel a little bored, but something would come up to get your attention back for a bit. It had light humor, but it was a nice chuckle and relaxing. The cast in the film was pretty good. Luke Wilson was decent, but not his best role. Now they needed an actor to play a off the wall weird teacher who is obsessed with bigfoot. So they picked David Koechner, who at first I thought wouldn't fit, but he proved me wrong. Gretchen Mol played the main female role and she did a good job. The film is all about a teacher trying to get tenure. That in itself sounds like a boring piece of work, but luckily they did put some humor in the film. That is basically what David Koechner was for. Some scenes were a bit out of the ordinary, but it really fit with the film. This independent film didn't rely on anything crazy like special effects. Just nice dialog and a decent cast. This would be one of those nice Sunday afternoon movies to watch.

I am not going to bash this movie as many have done... I saw the movie, and was think I set the bar too high. Without giving away too much of the movie, I found that the acting was good, the story was different from a "bottled, formulaic, Animal House-ish" rewrite college comedy.

It was smart, clever, and told a good tale, there was only a small amount of unanswered questions I had in my mind when it ended... I stared at the screen and said... "OK...it wasn't awful, it was .... well OK"

The bottom line is, I am not going to say it was a horrible movie, because it was not... I found that I was entertained by the movie, and they did not try to market it as a blockbuster.. A decent film, and not too far removed from what it was about.. trying to get tenure at a College.