Sadness and Triumph at a Massachusetts Boarding School

Alexander Payne’s new film, , is set in 1970, a time frame soaked into the aesthetic from the first minute—the grainy film stock, the strumming acoustic soundtrack, even the with the blocky color forms of bygone studio branding. The director may be harkening back to the era because it was a time of great upheaval, both cinematic (with the dawn of New Hollywood) and social. But Barton Academy, the stodgy is set, is a bulwark against all forms of change—and the film’s protagonist, the history professor Paul Hunham (played by Paul Giamatti), seems to have his feet firmly planted in the past.