Wonder Boys 2 Stars (Out of 4) Reviewed by Mac VerStandig critic@moviereviews.org http://www.moviereviews.org February 13, 2000 USA Release Date - February 25, 2000
---A copy of this review will be posted to http://www.moviereviews.org/wonder_boys.htm on the evening of February 24, 2000.---
Watching Wonder Boys is somewhat akin to viewing the last two-minutes of a football game where your home team simply cannot muster the needed points to emerge victorious. The players, Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr. and Katie Holmes, all maintain hometown-hero status with solid efforts. Unfortunately though, the game has run so long that your attention fades in and out and those last few passes reek of disparity as the quarterback tries to force something that simply doesn't work.
Grady Tripp (Academy Award Winner Michael Douglas) is a college English professor who finds his life in shambles as his wife leaves him, he struggles with a 2611-page unfinished novel and carries on an affair with the chancellor (Academy Award Winner Francis McDormand). His solution: dope.
James Leer (Tobey Maguire) is one of Tripp's students. His writing is ridiculed by the class, his personal life is dark and mysterious but his potential proves to be unlimited with a new book he has written. His solution: carrying a gun.
Terry Crabtree (former inmate Robert Downey Jr.) is a down-and-out homosexual editor seeking success and a new sexual partner. His solution: Tripp's book and Leer's body.
So, to recap, we have a lot of dope, a murder weapon, an unfinished novel, a finished novel, an affair and a group of characters with problems. Throw in a hood-jumper (Richard Knox), a wise student (Katie Holmes), Marilyn Monroe's wedding coat, a dead dog, a Howard Johnson parking lot and a forgotten backpack and there's plenty happening in the confusion-dominated football game.
Despite being given the opportunity to express a panoply of emotions in his self-discovering character, Michael Douglas always makes the conservative call and consequently fails to rouse up the crowd even if he is getting the job done adequately. Francis McDormand and Tobey Maguire both seem to go the extra yard, however. McDormand has an ordinary quality that is rare among actresses today- probably the reason for her Fargo Oscar- and she reaffirms acting competence here. Maguire confirms that he is to the depressive seeking enlightenment what Jack Palance is to the old western cowboy. With Pleasantville and The Cider House Rules as previous evidence of this trait, the 25 year-old actor is Hollywood's newest typecast thanks to this role that is practically made for him.
Wonder Boys first hits trouble with the Tripp/chancellor relationship. In a film with an otherwise interesting set of plot circumstances, the old boy-likes-girl-who-questions-affection-for-boy-untill-boy- accidentally-does-something-indirectly-affecting-her-and-is-afraid-to- tell-but-ultimately-she-confrontes-him-with-forgiveness is a tad too textbook for the film. Ditto the other major development in their relationship, or, to speak more properly, in her womb.
The movie's plot loses steam well before the fourth quarter even begins and things aren't helped by a desperately forced ending that is even more textbook than the aforementioned relationship.
This year, hundreds of millions of people looked on as the Super Bowl came down to 36 inches. Hopefully not even a fraction of those people will subject themselves to this production that sets itself up for a hopeless fourth and long and doesn't have 30-second Budweiser spots to tide the audience over.
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