The Professor (alternatively titled Richard Says Goodbye) is a 2018 American comedy drama film written and directed by Wayne Roberts. The film stars Johnny Depp, Rosemarie DeWitt, Danny Huston, Zoey Deutch, Ron Livingston and Odessa Young.
It had its world premiere at the Zurich Film Festival on October 5, 2018. It was released on May 17, 2019, by Saban Films.
Plot
College English professor Richard Brown is in the office of his doctor and receives sad news concerning his health. He has advanced stage cancer of his lungs, which has spread throughout his body with mortal consequences. His life expectancy is set by the doctor as being six months without treatment, which might be extended to 12–18 months with aggressive and painful cancer treatment. Richard is devastated by the news, becoming self-abusive in verbal tirades against himself, and walking through town and around campus as if in an emotional stupor.
Upon arrival at home for dinner, Richard decides to tell his wife, Veronica, and only daughter, Olivia, the bad news and prepare them for the worst outcome possible. The dinner conversation, however, takes unexpected turns. His daughter announces that she is a lesbian and that she has taken a lover. Veronica dismisses her daughter as going through a phase, which causes Olivia to storm out of the dining room, upset by her mother’s lack of support. Richard’s relationship with his wife is troubled and tortured. Veronica confronts Richard with the fact that he has been a poor husband and that she has taken a lover, the dean of the college where Richard teaches as part of the tenured faculty in the English department. With everyone having argued at the dinner table, Richard never gets to make his medical report of his crisis situation; when Veronica questions him about it, he says that he was concerned that he had overcooked the steaks.
On campus the next day, Richard begins telling his students about the urgency of living life to its fullest. He criticizes a number of stereotypes he superficially observes in the classroom and starts weeding out the students whom he feels are there to only get easy good grades, or otherwise seek cosmetic benefits from a friendly faculty. After over half of the potential classroom students leave the class as being of no interest to them, Richard is left with a core group of students who seem attracted to his unorthodox version of straight talk. They decide to stick with the class, and Richard’s newly proclaimed unorthodoxy. Among the students remaining is the niece of the college dean, who seems to admire Richard for all his differences with her uncle since both of them, Richard and her uncle, are members of the faculty in different departments.
Richard asks his friend, Peter Matthew, who happens to be his department’s chairman, to arrange for a sabbatical leave for him on immediate terms. The chairman tells him that it is impossible on such short notice, but Richard continues to press him. Finally, Richard tells him that he is dying of cancer and that he has no options but to request the immediate sabbatical leave. The chairman, who considers Richard a close friend and colleague, says that he will try his best and tries to reassure Richard as best as he can by way of some emotional support.
The classroom for Richard becomes a place for him to vent his frustration with life and to encourage his young students not to fall into the traps and false career paths that he took in his own life. The students are highly responsive, with one of the gay students offering Richard some pot brownies and a sexual tryst in Richard’s office. The dean’s niece, on another occasion, asks Richard for a slow romantic dance at a local club. Richard’s reliance on alcohol and recreational drugs in these passing days and weeks after receiving his bad news becomes progressively worse. In one instance, he passes out and needs to be hospitalized because of his extreme intoxication.
As his final words to his students, and later to his colleagues, he stresses the importance of seizing one’s own existence. To truly acknowledge the fact that we are all going to die and appreciate the (little) time we each have left.
After his bad news diagnosis, Richard becomes able to express warmth to his close family members and remaining friends. He finally bonds with his daughter by accepting her coming out as a lesbian and manages to at least partially patch things up with his wife during a frenzied and spontaneous drug experimentation episode in their bedroom. The end, however, seems inevitable as Richard does not take on the doctor’s option of using chemotherapy to extend his life by a single year, and Richard decides to leave his home and family on his final sabbatical leave, which has finally been approved by his college. Richard decides to take the less-traveled path on his own, in his car, and with his dog, in order not to be a burden upon his wife and daughter in his final months of life as his cancer rapidly progresses.
Cast
Johnny Depp as Richard Brown
Rosemarie DeWitt as Veronica Sinclair-Brown
Odessa Young as Olivia Brown
Danny Huston as Peter Matthew
Zoey Deutch as Claire
Devon Terrell as Danny
Ron Livingston as Henry Wright
Siobhan Fallon Hogan as Donna
Linda Emond as Barbara
Matreya Scarrwener as Rose
Paloma Kwiatkowski as a student
Kaitlyn Bernard as Taylor
Michael Kopsa as Richard’s doctor
Ken Kramer as Emeritus
Justine Warrington as Sarah
Marilyn Norry as Henry’s secretary
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