James Hart is a student at Harvard Law School, specialising in contract law, but his Professor Kingsfield is very demanding and difficult to work with. Hart starts a relationship with Susan, but is surprised to find out she is Kingsfield's daughter, about to get divorced from her husband, so Susan doesn't mention Hart to Kingsfield. A student, Kevin, is so under pressure from studying despite having a photographic memory, that he contemplated suicide, so he quits Harvard. Hart and his friend Ford study for the final exam in a hotel room for three days. When he gets his test results in the main, he makes a paper plane and throws it into the Ocean.
"The Paper Chase" is one of those rare movies composed only out of pure intelligence. It is a static drama where the students just listen to the lecture of their Professor Kingsfield explaining contract law through the Socratic method, i.e. in the form of questions, answers and discussions with the class, but it is surprisingly fascinating to listen to, mostly thanks to the excellent performance by John Houseman (previously a theater and film producer) as the demanding Kingsfield. Whenever Houseman is on the screen, he brings down the house through his understated charisma, intelligence and stoic-elevated discourse. And he references real-life legal cases, such as Hawkins vs. McGee, where a boy had his hand burned by an electric wire, a doctor promised him a new skin, but he transplated it from the boy's chest, thereby causing hair growth on the palm of the hand of the transplated skin, using this as an example of the expectation damages rewarded to the plaintiff.
Kingsfield and a student have exchanges such as this one: "What are the elements that could lead to a party being excused from performing his part of the contract, and yet not paying damages?" - "Well, suppose I were to agree to rent an apartment from you. An old apartment which you haven't visited in a while. And the time came for me to move in, and we discovered the apartment house has been burned down. That actually happened to me..." However, the rest of the film is a step below, since the main protagonist Hart and his love interest Susan are bland and not that interesting, and thus the movie starts to drag with them as the main catalysts of the story. Hart is introduced in the first sequence which already plays out in the classroom, when Kingsfield calls him out: "Now that you're on your feet, Mr. Hart, maybe the classroom might be able to understand you. You are on your feet?" - "Yes, I am on my feet." - "Loudly Mr. Hart! Fill this room with your intelligence!" Their later animosity culminates with this: "You are a son of a bitch, Kingsfield!" - "Mr. Hart, that is the most intelligent thing you've said today! You may take your seat." It is a pity there is practically no interaction between Hart and Kingsfield outside the classroom—considering Hart is dating his daughter, this could have been used to meet Kingsfield and find out more about his private life, but that never happens. Kingsfield is always formal to him. The inspiration falls a bit in the second half, where less of the movie plays out in classroom, but it has an interesting point where students just chase that paper which gives them a certificate that they achieved something in society—but Hart then just frees himself from this, in a very symbolic final scene.
Grade:++
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