Wonder Boys
Updated 19 Dec 00
To the staff at the theatre where I work, Wonder Boys will always be cool because of all the pot smoking contained within it. I, however, have other reasons why I love this movie. Embraced by critics, but criminally ignored by audiences everywhere, the people who will soon torture us with Rugrats in Paris have seen fit to give this one another chance before casting it off to video hell. Part of the reason why this film probably failed was that it was so hard to define. It has funny moments, but it’s not a comedy. It’s got drama, but it doesn’t feel like a epic. You can’t even sum up the film’s plot in five sentences or less. I love this film for all of these reasons.
Michael Douglas, not one of my favorite actors, plays a wunderkind whose successful first novel has led to a tremendous case of writer’s block. Teaching at a college in Pennsylvania, the film opens with his wife leaving him, his mistress, who also happens to be his bosses’ wife, has announced that she’s pregnant, one of his students seems to be hitting on him and he has to put in a appearance at the school’s annual writer’s conference with his ambitious and flaming homosexual editor clamoring for the precious pages of his next novel, which is not yet finished but spans over 2100 pages. Add a budding prodigy to the mix and stir lightly.
The actors are well cast throughout, from Frances McDormand as the mistress (who may have the misfortune of competing against herself in Almost Famous come Oscar® time) to Robert Downey, Jr., as the editor, Katie Holmes, light-years from that Creek as the love-struck student, to Tobey Maguire, fresh from The Cider House Rules, as the young writer who captures everyone’s imagination. The movie moves along briskly, seemingly without effort, like any good story should, until it’s funny and oddly satisfying conclusion.
It rare that a studio admits it messed up a film’s release enough to redo it, so those of you who missed this gem the first time around are oblidged to seek out this great film the second time around. Those of you who saw this the first time around, a final thought: a second viewing gives you a better appreciation of just how effortlessly directed this film is and how skillful this cast really is. I can’t recommend this film enough.