Some random thoughts

The opening of the movie put me off a bit. It's presented in "scope" - 2.35:1. In the age of widescreen TVs, where scope movies have the letterbox "black bars", I immediately thought "really?!". The cinematography was good, and once the movie got going, I didn't really think about it, but it was odd from the start.

Then he's in an office doing admittance interviews. To the camera, or someone sitting near the camera. They show passage of time as he changes clothes (I have no idea if his hair changed during this time), but not a single office supply moved in all that time. So he just comes in each day, doesn't touch anything, and talks to people?

Then he's doing his laundry and they pan away from his laundry bag. I immediately knew it was going to be stolen, but I can't imagine the thief didn't make any noise, or that Jesse wouldn't have seen him in his peripheral vision.

Allioson Janney was a bit of a Chekhov's gun - you can't show her at the beginning and not pull that trigger, right?

The writing of the letters was an interesting thing. The idea of putting pen to paper. Whether you put something in a mailbox or click "send", you can't really get it back, but the writing process is different and there is that moment when you get something in the mail. Zibby is really too young to have much experience getting mail outside of birthday or Christmas cards; I'm surprised that she insisted on it, but it is kind of nice.

When he came back at her suggestion, he didn't want to see his old professor (as soon as he said that, I knew that they would have an awkward meeting), but he took all day to read a book that he didn't like?! If I were in such a situation, I would admit that I had never read the book then said "I'll read it when I go home and we can discuss it later".

Speaking of the professor, he seemed a bit underused. He was the reason for Jesse to come to the college in the first place; they had a nice dinner where it was obvious that he regretted retiring; then he begged for his job back. Seemed like another story was there, but it didn't really go anywhere.