Heeding the age-old advice to write what you know, Miles Doleac, an assistant professor at the University of Southern Mississippi, explores the world of academia in his feature directorial/screenwriting debut. While the tyro filmmaker has perhaps bitten off more than he can chew with the overly soapyThe Historian, the film does offer some intriguing insights into its cinematically under-explored milieu as well as providing the opportunity for fine performances from several screen veterans.  

Doleac also plays the lead role of Ben Rhodes, a classics professor who becomes embroiled in personal and professional travails when he takes a job at a new university after a painful separation from his wife. He almost immediately runs afoul of his department head, Valerian Hadley (William Sadler), whose once-prominent career has faded and who is consumed with the task of caring for his elderly, Alzheimer’s-afflicted father (John Cullum)...