WONDER BOYS
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: A "great novelist" and writing
teacher who has hit an unproductive streak comes to
terms with the aimlessness of his existence when he
finds a young student with a genuine talent.
Michael Douglas is cast counter to type and Tobey
McGuire plays the student. A bittersweet look at
life in the academic community. Enjoyable, but not
nearly up to Curtis Hanson's L. A. CONFIDENTIAL.
Rating: 6 (0 to 10), high +1 (-4 to +4)
Highly reminiscent of NOBODY'S FOOL, WONDER BOYS is another look at a life unable to move forward--as if stuck in the snow of the cold snowy town where the character lives. Both the town and the character seem to have seen better days. But while Paul Newman's character never achieved any greatness in NOBODY'S FOOL, Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) at least superficially appears to be living a constructive life that only now is falling apart at the seams. Tripp was at one time a great novelist. People were inspired by the novel he wrote years ago. But his next novel, now about 2600 typed single-spaced pages, gets further and further from having its plots tied up. Like the novel, Grady just wanders. And things are falling apart. His wife has just left him and returned to live with her parents.
In the meantime he still is teaching Creative Writing at a Pittsburgh university. But Grady knows that he can teach no more than the mechanics of writing. He is a man who for a living gives useless advice to others while leaving no advice to himself unignored. He is powerless to turn students into great writers, but at least he can still recognize when one of his students is a great writer. In this case he recognizes that divine spark in James Leer (Tobey McGuire), an innocent young writer who seems to have the spark of greatness. Grady will discover that James perhaps is not so innocent as he appears.
WONDER BOYS is directed by Curtis Hanson from a screenplay by Steve Kloves, based on the novel by Michael Chabon. Hanson's last film was the beautifully textured L. A. CONFIDENTIAL. That film marvelously captured the post-war feel of Los Angeles. Perhaps WONDER BOYS does as good a job of capturing the academic community in Pittsburgh, but even if he does, who cares? His academic world is populated with strange characters and Grady himself is an anachronism of the 1960s. He smokes pot and leads a Bohemian life-style in a large ugly old house such as one frequently finds on Eastern campuses. Grady carries on an affair with Sara (Francis McDormand) the university chancellor and wife of the head of the English Department and Grady's boss (Richard Thomas, who seems typecast after THE WALTONS to play literary types).
This weekend is Wordfest, an annual event at the university when one-time good writers and their fans get together to admire the sound of their own words. It seems at first as if we are to take it seriously, but it takes one sharp giggle form Leer to make us realize that we are really seeing a convocation of emperors without clothes. The head of the English department has revenge against Leer, misreading the title of Leer's novel to make it sound banal.
Through most of the film the very randomness and unpredictability of the plot gives it a realistic tone. Unfortunately unlike Grady's novel, clearly someone realized that the ends had to be tied up and a fairly contrived incident toward the end of the film shakes Grady from his status quo. But until then Grady is really afraid to let his life move on. He is a coward. While he has an obvious paternal side, caring very warming for Leer, he is afraid of parenthood. Having proved himself once he exaggerates the effort necessary for the next step in order to avoid taking it. It is better to look like he is attempting a huge feat than to actually proceed and risk failure. In this way he can have failure imposed on him by others. The is a very different character for Michael Douglas than those he has played before.
In spite of the disappointing contrived-seeming ending, WONDER BOYS does ring true as a picture of the academic literary community. I rate it a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 2000 Mark R. Leeper
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