Wonder Boys is a glum screwball comedy with a ganja-addicted professor as its protagonist and it is the best kind of follow-up Curtis Hanson could have asked for after the success of LA Confidential. Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) is our main wonder boy, an English professor who hasn't produced a novel nearly seven years after his successful Arsonist's Daughter. It's a testament to his credibility as a writer that everyone from a precocious student (Katie Holmes) to a fellow professor (Rip Torn) still fawns over Grady whenever he gives them a chance.
Hanson's jaded take on the academic life of a Pittsburgh college is defined by a rich exploration of men whose emotional bonds with each other build over a series of chaotic events. James Leer (Tobey Maguire), one of Grady's students, is a gloomy lad who seems all but ready to join his professor on his quirky little journey to normalcy. The third wonder boy is Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey Jr.), Grady's neurotic book editor whose job is on the line if Grady can't produce another successful novel.
The problem with Grady is that his new novel is 2,000 pages long and he doesn't know how to end it. It's not so much that Grady is marijuana-happy but that he doesn't know how to deal with the turmoil in his life and therefore allows himself to go to seed. He toils away; incapable of understanding how he can let go of his third wife and allow himself to marry Sara (Frances McDormand), a professor's wife he is having an affair with and who has revealed to Grady that she is pregnant with his child.
Sara's husband Walter (Richard Thomas) holds a party at his house and Downey's fey character is instantly stricken by James uncanny ability to recite, alphabetically, the methods by which numerous celebrities met their suicidal ends. The seemingly fickle Terry is just as vulnerable as James so their relationship, culminating in a not-so-surprising romp in the hay, feels like a union of two lost souls who have oddly found their way home. But the meat of the story lies in the fact that the party at Sara's house ends with Grady and James needing to dispose of Sara's dead dog. Things also don't look too good for Grady when he discovers that James stole the coat owned by Marilyn Monroe on her wedding day, which Walter had secretly locked away in his bedroom.
The film is full of many surprises, like Grady's discovery of Marilyn's coat in James' schoolbag and how Grady's car ends up in the hands of a quirky, ex-jockey and his wayward girlfriend. The couple leads Grady on a softly cathartic and mythical journey that helps Grady lose his verbosity and take control of his life.
Michael Douglas, playing against type in a year that also brought us a surprise performance from Hollywood-heavy Julia Roberts, plays Grady with a sympathetically scruffy cynicism that reminds us why he is such a good actor. Things tie themselves up a little too neatly by the end of the film, as if one's relationship to marijuana was a main cause of writer's block, but it's an ending that is smooth on the stomach. Wonder Boys is about the commitments that we make to ourselves and the people around us and the fears that one must conquer in order to make the decisions that will emotionally mature us. Hanson's film has an undercurrent of pathos running throughout its very fiber that makes the journey richly rewarding and akin to opening a present on Christmas
Hanson's jaded take on the academic life of a Pittsburgh college is defined by a rich exploration of men whose emotional bonds with each other build over a series of chaotic events. James Leer (Tobey Maguire), one of Grady's students, is a gloomy lad who seems all but ready to join his professor on his quirky little journey to normalcy. The third wonder boy is Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey Jr.), Grady's neurotic book editor whose job is on the line if Grady can't produce another successful novel.
The problem with Grady is that his new novel is 2,000 pages long and he doesn't know how to end it. It's not so much that Grady is marijuana-happy but that he doesn't know how to deal with the turmoil in his life and therefore allows himself to go to seed. He toils away; incapable of understanding how he can let go of his third wife and allow himself to marry Sara (Frances McDormand), a professor's wife he is having an affair with and who has revealed to Grady that she is pregnant with his child.
Sara's husband Walter (Richard Thomas) holds a party at his house and Downey's fey character is instantly stricken by James uncanny ability to recite, alphabetically, the methods by which numerous celebrities met their suicidal ends. The seemingly fickle Terry is just as vulnerable as James so their relationship, culminating in a not-so-surprising romp in the hay, feels like a union of two lost souls who have oddly found their way home. But the meat of the story lies in the fact that the party at Sara's house ends with Grady and James needing to dispose of Sara's dead dog. Things also don't look too good for Grady when he discovers that James stole the coat owned by Marilyn Monroe on her wedding day, which Walter had secretly locked away in his bedroom.
The film is full of many surprises, like Grady's discovery of Marilyn's coat in James' schoolbag and how Grady's car ends up in the hands of a quirky, ex-jockey and his wayward girlfriend. The couple leads Grady on a softly cathartic and mythical journey that helps Grady lose his verbosity and take control of his life.
Michael Douglas, playing against type in a year that also brought us a surprise performance from Hollywood-heavy Julia Roberts, plays Grady with a sympathetically scruffy cynicism that reminds us why he is such a good actor. Things tie themselves up a little too neatly by the end of the film, as if one's relationship to marijuana was a main cause of writer's block, but it's an ending that is smooth on the stomach. Wonder Boys is about the commitments that we make to ourselves and the people around us and the fears that one must conquer in order to make the decisions that will emotionally mature us. Hanson's film has an undercurrent of pathos running throughout its very fiber that makes the journey richly rewarding and akin to opening a present on Christmas