When one reads the book "The Irrational Man" by William Barrett, one gets a touch of everything that haunts the persona of Joaquin Phoenix's professor in this film. He had almost developed a sort of out of body experience as he lays the principals of philosophy on his private school students. He is a loner and a cynic and can't find happiness. He has begun to pick and chose the most abysmal views on life. All those philosophers from Kant to Kierkegaard have seen the underbelly of reality in the world. Yet, like Wooody Allen, they continued to write and produce. Why? Because when push comes to shove, our mortality is what we have; our lives are still all we have. Unless you believe in some afterlife where we continue to act as we do now, even that is filled with uncertainties. Abe, in this film, has a kind of mental constipation going on. He can't write and can't have sex and can't be embraced socially in his world. He is truly reckless, as shown by his encounter with Russian roulette. When he begins to see himself as Raskalnikov in "Crime and Punishment," he commits a murder which he justifies by saying the world is a better place without a harsh judge. I think where it falls apart is that Abe never, for a moment, considers that police often have to blame someone. Emma Stone's character lays it out for him later and it's as if he had never thought of the results of his actions. He really believed in the perfect crime. He really believed that they would never blame someone. He is then faced with a Jean Valjean choice as to whether to fess up and give up his life for someone he doesn't even know. The result of the whole thing is quite disappointing, but, then, Allen paints him into a corner. '