Wonder Boys (2000)
Directed by Curtis Hanson
Grady is a 50-ish English professor who hasn't had a thing published in years—not since he wrote his award winning 'Great American Novel' 7 years ago. This weekend proves even worse than he could imagine as he finds himself reeling from one misadventure to another in the company of a new wonder boy author.
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14 films that influenced Wonder Boys
What critics say influenced Wonder Boys
The film, based on the comic novel by Michael Chabon, is somewhat reminiscent of Nobody’s Fool (which starred Paul Newman), in that it shares a similar mood, snowy locale (New England) and cast of likeable characters.
Paul Newman did it, in The Hudsucker Proxy and Nobody’s Fool after all.
As novelist/college professor Grady Tripp, Douglas is at the center of this yarn, whose overall mood suggests Scorsese's After Hours, with tenure.
His last film, the incendiary '50s underworld labyrinth ''L.A. Confidential,'' was the first to win him acclaim as an artist, and ''Wonder Boys,'' adapted by Steve Kloves (''The Fabulous Baker Boys'') from a 1995 novel by Michael Chabon, feels like an overly considered change up.
Because Wonder Boys is so skillfully driven by its characters and their realism rather than by a cookie-cutter plot or action sequences, Hanson and screenwriter Steve Kloves (The Fabulous Baker Boys) avoid the easy clichés of comedy and midlife crisis that would have diminished everything after the set-up.
Kloves is best known as a writer-director himself, with films such as The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) and Flesh and Bone (1993), quiet, intelligent films that allowed for rich character development and top-notch performances.
The screenplay (by Steve Kloves, "The Fabulous Baker Boys") is full of funny swipes at academic intelligentsia and other punchy asides as it weaves Grady into escalating, but never implausible, messes.
But Hanson and screenwriter Steve Kloves ("The Fabulous Baker Boys") have captured some of the flavor of the book.
The screenplay by Steve Kloves (" The Fabulous Baker Boys "), based on a novel by Michael Chabon , is European in its preference for character over plot.
Paul Newman did it, in The Hudsucker Proxy and Nobody’s Fool after all.
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With 1997's "The Ice Storm" (also starring Maguire), 1999's "Go," and now "Wonder Boys," Holmes is sure to stick around for a very long time, choosing interesting projects and notable supporting roles that wisely distances her from her "Dawson's Creek" character.
Played by Michael Douglas in a calculated reversal of his standard lethal-lothario persona, Grady is overweight and unshaven, with a bad haircut, glasses, and a stocking cap; he looks at times like the idiot brother played by Billy Bob Thornton in A Simple Plan.
Like the rare and wonderful film Midnight Run, one wild caper after another goes by without losing the film’s firm grip on the reality of the situation.
From the imitation-noir mode of "L.A. Confidential," Hanson here moves into the life-lessons epic mode that Lasse Hallström has mined so successfully, both in his current "The Cider House Rules" and in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape."
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In a performance that rivals his work in "Wall Street" as the best of his career, Douglas grounds the film with effortless-looking naturalism and crusty charm.
Much like the protagonist of Mr. Holland's Opus and those in a host of other if-you-can't-do-teach movies, Tripp, a promising young writer of yesteryear, achieves an early success a brush with celebrity, if you will and then, settles into a studied mediocrity.