At the Venice Film Festival, Paul Schrader’s latest drama, The Basics of Philosophy, stars Jack Huston as a college professor forced to reckon with a devastating childhood transgression.
The Bottom Line
- The Core Premise: Jack Huston portrays philosophy professor John Jorrinson, whose quiet academic life unravels after he spots a figure from his past at his father’s funeral.
- The Provocative Meta-Text: The film’s arrival follows public sexual assault and harassment allegations made against director Paul Schrader in April 2025, casting a heavy shadow over its themes of absolution and guilt.
- Aesthetic Approach: Cinematographer Sean Price Williams and composer Eli Kezsler lend an ascetic yet restless, haunted atmosphere to Schrader’s familiar ‘man-in-a-room’ confessional style.
Unpacking Schrader’s Moral Event-Horizon
Another man, another room, and another vile past deed waiting for expiation. Writer-director Paul Schrader returns to familiar territory in The Basics of Philosophy, exploring the heavy intellectual work a sinner must endure to seek redemption. But here, the moral stakes approach a staggering precipice. In The Card Counter, Schrader asked if a torturer could ever truly shed that past. In Master Gardener, he pondered whether a former Nazi could change. Now, his endless preoccupations approach a darker event-horizon: Is it possible to once have been a pedophile?
The film opens with Jack Huston’s Professor John Jorrinson standing before a blackboard inscribed with the title of his course, talking to students about philosophy. It is a bluntly presentational approach that divides audiences. Yet, for viewers drawn to Schrader’s ongoing tussle with grandiose dilemmas, the film offers striking stylistic shifts. Sean Price Williams’ cinematography brings fresh visual interest to the austere aesthetic, while Eli Kezsler’s somber, restless score flatters the director’s serious intentions.
Production Background and Real-World Shadows
To view The Basics of Philosophy purely as a fictional exercise is to miss the complicated reality of its creation. In April 2025, director Paul Schrader was accused of sexual assault and harassment by a former assistant. By June of that same year, he began production on this very project. While the script was written before those allegations became public, its tale of an accused college professor seeking absolution feels uncomfortably personal.
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director | Paul Schrader |
| Lead Actor | Jack Huston (Prof. John Jorrinson) |
| Supporting Cast | Sofia Boutella, Daniel Zovatto, Bill Pullman |
| Festival Premiere | Venice Film Festival 2026 |
| Key Crew | Sean Price Williams (DP), Eli Kezsler (Composer) |
The narrative unfolds through epistolary confessionals, replacing the physical diaries seen in First Reformed, The Card Counter, and Master Gardener with a biography of philosopher Baruch Spinoza. This text offers Jorrinson a framework to ask broad questions about his place in the world and whether true change is possible. He teaches at a leafy liberal arts college by day, dates his colleague Becca (Sofia Boutella)—a psychology professor with a young son—and deals with a complicated dynamic involving his dying father, Melvyn (Bill Pullman).
Confronting Transgression on Screen
Here is the kicker: the catalyst for the film’s central mystery arrives at Melvyn’s funeral. Jorrinson spots Miguel Vasque, played by an excellent Daniel Zovatto, sitting in the pews. Flashbacks—rendered in high-contrast black and white—reveal that years prior, Jorrinson gave piano lessons to a 14-year-old Miguel (Trevor Dolden) and sexually abused him. Jorrinson confessed immediately to his father, who spent a lifetime providing financial and emotional support to Miguel’s family to atone for and cover up the crime.
Telling this story from a perpetrator’s perspective invites immense scrutiny. The film does not seek cheap empathy for Jorrinson. Instead, it poses piercing questions about justice, healing, and what those concepts mean in the wake of assault. Huston anchors this heavy material with a haunted performance, capturing a man who believes his very desire for forgiveness might be a bridge too far.
Ultimately, The Basics of Philosophy forces an unavoidable collision between art and its creator. Whether audiences can separate Schrader’s real-world circumstances from this bleak morality play remains the defining question of its festival run. What do you make of Schrader’s ongoing cinematic explorations of guilt? Drop your thoughts in the comments below.
