The Historian

Fleeing a personal tragedy, Dr. Ben Rhodes (Miles Doleac) takes a job at a new university, in a history department chaired by once-celebrated historian Valerian Hadley (William Sadler), who now fights to rekindle his fading career while caring for an elderly father (John Cullum) whose health fades faster by the day. Both feel a duty to impart the lessons of the past, even though they cannot seem to come to terms with their own histories. Further complicating matters is a promising but needy graduate student, Anna (Jillian Taylor), who worships one and is smitten with the other. This is a dark, funny, humane drama that puts academia under the microscope and finds a mirror of human nature.