The Professor

I’ll admit, I walked into The Professor with some heavy baggage. It was 2018, and Johnny Depp was at a strange crossroads—entrenched in the Fantastic Beasts franchise while his personal life was essentially a daily headline. Then this little indie dramedy popped up, originally titled Richard Says Goodbye, before being rebranded with the remarkably generic title The Professor. I watched this on my laptop while waiting for my laundry to finish, and the rhythmic thumping of my dryer actually synced up weirdly well with the movie’s somber piano score.

The setup is a classic trope: Richard (Johnny Depp), a stuffy English professor at a leafy New England college, is told he has six months to live. Instead of embarking on a soulful journey of self-discovery or checking off a bucket list, he decides to spend his remaining time being brutally honest, doing a lot of drugs, and essentially turning his classroom into a clubhouse for people who are tired of pretending.

Richard’s "Gallows" Transformation

There is a specific kind of freedom that comes with a terminal diagnosis in movies, but Richard doesn't use it to go skydiving. He uses it to tell a room full of students that if they’re wearing "athleisure" or have "no spark of individuality," they should leave immediately. It’s a fantasy for anyone who has ever worked in a bureaucratic or academic setting. It’s basically 'Dead Poets Society' if Robin Williams had a death wish and a penchant for casual drug use.

Depp’s performance here is actually a relief. By the late 2010s, we were so used to seeing him under layers of CGI and face paint that seeing him just... be a guy... felt radical. He plays Richard with a dry, alcoholic wit that feels genuinely lived-in. It’s the most likable Johnny Depp has been in a decade precisely because he isn't hiding under six pounds of prosthetics. He carries the "world-weary" vibe with an effortless slouch that makes you believe he’s spent twenty years grading mediocre essays on Moby Dick.

A Family in Freefall

The drama is fueled by the fact that Richard’s life was already a mess before the cancer arrived. His wife, Veronica (Rosemarie DeWitt), is having an affair with the college dean, and his daughter, Olivia (Odessa Young), is navigating her own identity crises. Rosemarie DeWitt (Rachel Getting Married) is excellent at playing a character who is simultaneously unlikable and deeply sympathetic; her chemistry with Depp is built on years of unspoken resentment and sharp-tongued barbs.

The real heart of the film, though, isn't the family—it’s the friendship between Richard and Peter (Danny Huston). Danny Huston is usually cast as a gravel-voiced villain (Wonder Woman, Yellowstone), so seeing him as a gentle, weeping best friend who just wants his buddy to survive is a total curveball. Their scenes together are the only ones that feel truly grounded. When they’re sitting in a bar discussing the futility of existence, the movie stops trying to be an edgy comedy and actually becomes a poignant drama about the terror of being left behind.

Why Did This One Get Lost?

So, why haven't more people seen this? For one, the distributor, Global Road Entertainment, went bankrupt right around the time the film was supposed to hit theaters, leading to a botched release. It’s a classic "streaming era" casualty—a mid-budget drama that didn't have the awards-season momentum of something like Manchester by the Sea or the franchise pull of a Marvel movie. In the current landscape, if a drama doesn't have a massive "hook" or a viral social media moment, it often vanishes into the VOD abyss.

Furthermore, Wayne Roberts’ script (he also directed) walks a very thin line between profound and pretentious. Sometimes the dialogue feels like it was written by a philosophy student who just discovered Camus. However, the film is saved by its supporting cast. Zoey Deutch (The Politician) brings a spark of energy as one of Richard's students, and Devon Terrell (Barry) provides a necessary foil to Richard’s nihilism. The film doesn't always earn its emotional beats, but the actors work overtime to make sure you feel the weight of the situation.

Ultimately, The Professor is a film about the "Contemporary Moment"—that specific 21st-century anxiety where we feel trapped by our roles and our routines. It asks what happens when the social contract is shredded. It’s not a perfect movie, and it certainly doesn't reinvent the "dying man" subgenre, but it has a specific, biting charm that kept me from checking my phone (or my laundry) for the full 90 minutes.

While it occasionally stumbles over its own cleverness, The Professor is a solid character study anchored by a surprisingly vulnerable Johnny Depp. It’s a dark, messy, and frequently funny look at what it means to stop caring about the small things when the "big thing" is finally at the door. If you’re in the mood for a drama that isn't afraid to be a little bit mean-spirited before it gets sweet, this one is a hidden gem worth digging up on your next streaming deep-dive.