Wonder Boys
"Wonder Boys", with Michael Douglas,Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr., Katie Holmes and Richard Thomas. Written by Michael Chabon, screenplay by Steve Kloves. MPAA Rating R for language, drug use and mature themes. Run time 115 minutes.
"Wonder Boys" is a moovie that a lot of people won't care much for, specifically those under say, forty. The reason is that the subject matter of "Wonder Boys" is little more than watching a middle aged man, Professor Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) learn to grow up. He's painted himself into a couple of tight little corners, and has to come to terms with the idea that he can either mess up the paint a little and get out, or play nice and sit in the corner until the messy parts dry up.
A once published novelist, Grady Tripp has been laboring over his next masterpiece to the exclusion of all else. Well, almost. His wife leaves him, he learns that the school Chancellor, (Frances McDormand) with whom he's been having an ongoing affair is suddenly and unmistakably pregnant; and one of his star students, Hannah Green (Katie Holmes) has done everything short of lassoing and hog tying the professor to get him to notice her long enough to jump her bones. The unlikely catalysts for the chemical reactions required to get Grady off his middle age dime come in the persons of student James Leer (Tobey Maguire), a dark and brooding novelist to be, and Grady's free wheeling, but failing, literary agent Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey, Jr.)
Everything comes to a head the week of the school's literary festival, when Crabtree comes to town. Grady and Leer become involved in the heist of an article of Marilyn Monroe's clothing from the chancellor's husband's closet (I know, but it's not really as weird as it sounds), and in the process, they kill the chancellor's husband's horrible blind dog. As the two try to cover their tracks and attempt to smooth everything over and ditch the dog, they both discover that their respective lives are not only out of control, but careening at high speed toward a pure vacuum.
Grady's book, which Crabtree is dancing to get his hands on, has topped the twenty-five hundred page mark (single spaced) and he finds himself unable to finish the book, or anything else. His monster in a box becomes a character in its own right, as the dope smoking Grady struggles to be able to finish the book, find a way to stand up for himself, decide what to do about the chancellor and the inevitable showdown with unintentional parenthood, avoid the advances of Hannah, try to decode the mysterious weavings of Leer's imagination, and in the end, just fish or cut bait, dammit. About the fifteenth time reality bites him on the ass (or the ankle as the case may be) Grady starts to realize that a painless continuity of existence is not nearly the same as being honest and alive.
That, as plot synopses go, will probably not win any awards for lucidity, but here it bears mentioning that sometimes the simplest, most elegant ideas are the most difficult to illuminate. Maybe "Wonder Boys" contains such an idea. That's my story and I'm stickin' with it. There are no battle cruisers in flames off the limbs of Orion, no grand gestures of philosophy, no pies in the face - only the uphill walk of one man to be able to face himself for what he is. Kids, I don't know how you get through the week, but if I had to make a separate and honest peace with myself every day, I'd probably see about checking into a well maintained Reality Distortion Zone of some kind. With lots of medication, thanks.
Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire and Frances McDormand are at the top of their form in "Wonder Boys". Robert Downey, Jr., one of my favorite actors (when he's on parole) is as good as he's ever been, and with Maguire is the mortar that holds the whole story together. The net result is a moovie that's neither whiny nor preachy - a story that is undeniably subtle, but extremely entertaining for the right audience. There are enough laughs to keep it from getting weighted down in trivial introspective agony, but not so many that the serious point is lost.
"Wonder Boys" is a nice low risk voyeurism - you find yourself saying. "Man, I'm sure glad I'm not that poor schmuck." The you realize that with a few minor changes in wardrobe and a slight rewrite of the screen play, you ARE that poor schmuck. If you're approaching middle age, living in middle age, or intend to one day become a middle aged person, check out "Wonder Boys". It won't blow you away, but as a moovie made for adults is likely to do, it might just let you exhale a little bit. (And you won't be working in the yard, either.)
I gave "Wonder Boys" three cows and a transvestite tuba player.
"Wonder Boys" is a moovie that a lot of people won't care much for, specifically those under say, forty. The reason is that the subject matter of "Wonder Boys" is little more than watching a middle aged man, Professor Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) learn to grow up. He's painted himself into a couple of tight little corners, and has to come to terms with the idea that he can either mess up the paint a little and get out, or play nice and sit in the corner until the messy parts dry up.
A once published novelist, Grady Tripp has been laboring over his next masterpiece to the exclusion of all else. Well, almost. His wife leaves him, he learns that the school Chancellor, (Frances McDormand) with whom he's been having an ongoing affair is suddenly and unmistakably pregnant; and one of his star students, Hannah Green (Katie Holmes) has done everything short of lassoing and hog tying the professor to get him to notice her long enough to jump her bones. The unlikely catalysts for the chemical reactions required to get Grady off his middle age dime come in the persons of student James Leer (Tobey Maguire), a dark and brooding novelist to be, and Grady's free wheeling, but failing, literary agent Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey, Jr.)
Everything comes to a head the week of the school's literary festival, when Crabtree comes to town. Grady and Leer become involved in the heist of an article of Marilyn Monroe's clothing from the chancellor's husband's closet (I know, but it's not really as weird as it sounds), and in the process, they kill the chancellor's husband's horrible blind dog. As the two try to cover their tracks and attempt to smooth everything over and ditch the dog, they both discover that their respective lives are not only out of control, but careening at high speed toward a pure vacuum.
Grady's book, which Crabtree is dancing to get his hands on, has topped the twenty-five hundred page mark (single spaced) and he finds himself unable to finish the book, or anything else. His monster in a box becomes a character in its own right, as the dope smoking Grady struggles to be able to finish the book, find a way to stand up for himself, decide what to do about the chancellor and the inevitable showdown with unintentional parenthood, avoid the advances of Hannah, try to decode the mysterious weavings of Leer's imagination, and in the end, just fish or cut bait, dammit. About the fifteenth time reality bites him on the ass (or the ankle as the case may be) Grady starts to realize that a painless continuity of existence is not nearly the same as being honest and alive.
That, as plot synopses go, will probably not win any awards for lucidity, but here it bears mentioning that sometimes the simplest, most elegant ideas are the most difficult to illuminate. Maybe "Wonder Boys" contains such an idea. That's my story and I'm stickin' with it. There are no battle cruisers in flames off the limbs of Orion, no grand gestures of philosophy, no pies in the face - only the uphill walk of one man to be able to face himself for what he is. Kids, I don't know how you get through the week, but if I had to make a separate and honest peace with myself every day, I'd probably see about checking into a well maintained Reality Distortion Zone of some kind. With lots of medication, thanks.
Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire and Frances McDormand are at the top of their form in "Wonder Boys". Robert Downey, Jr., one of my favorite actors (when he's on parole) is as good as he's ever been, and with Maguire is the mortar that holds the whole story together. The net result is a moovie that's neither whiny nor preachy - a story that is undeniably subtle, but extremely entertaining for the right audience. There are enough laughs to keep it from getting weighted down in trivial introspective agony, but not so many that the serious point is lost.
"Wonder Boys" is a nice low risk voyeurism - you find yourself saying. "Man, I'm sure glad I'm not that poor schmuck." The you realize that with a few minor changes in wardrobe and a slight rewrite of the screen play, you ARE that poor schmuck. If you're approaching middle age, living in middle age, or intend to one day become a middle aged person, check out "Wonder Boys". It won't blow you away, but as a moovie made for adults is likely to do, it might just let you exhale a little bit. (And you won't be working in the yard, either.)
I gave "Wonder Boys" three cows and a transvestite tuba player.
