Author: iysmall@aol.com (Ron Small)
WONDER BOYS (2000)
Grade: B
Director: Curtis Hanson
Screenplay: Steven Kloves
Starring: Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Robert Downy J.r, Katie Holmes, Rip Torn, Jane Adams, Richard Thomas
In WONDER BOYS Michael Douglas plays an aged writer\professor with such lived-in naturalism that I believe it may be his best performance. Ever since WALL STREET, Douglas has spent the greater part of his career playing variations on the shark in a suit Gordon Gecko character he personified in the mid-80's. In those performances he tended to exaggerate the vehemence of cutthroat businessmen, with much frothing at the mouth while projecting all his bad intentions to the world. You'd think such a man would keep his evil wrapped tightly underneath a good-natured veneer, but from Gordon Gecko to Nicholas Van Orton, Douglas played the role straight and out in the open. In WONDER BOYS his performance isn't showy or a tour de force, it's simple yet truthful.
He embodies Grady, a craggy old writer with a predilection for pot and pink bathrobes. Grady instructs a writers workshop while working tirelessly on a follow up to the novel that put him on the map. When we first encounter this curmudgeon in the midst of his workshop, we hear his sardonic narration on the soundtrack as students bombard one of their own with unfair criticisms. Grady points out, in his narration, that they only do so out of jealousy. Their target is the very writerly named James Leer (played by the always understated Tobey Maguire), a student full of potential and one whom Grady develops a mild affection for.
Leer is the kind of youth who seems to mechanically block out emotions. He speaks in an intellectualized monotone with just a hint of dry wit around the edges. He's portentous and gloomy, as if modeling himself after the great depressed writers, though his act is a little too calculated. He reminds me of the self-imposed outcast film director, Jim Jarmusch (DEAD MAN, GHOST DOG). Whenever I happen to catch Jarmusch in an interview I see the man speaking in a toneless manner (the monotonous drawl supposedly masking depth or contempt for his interviewer), exclusively dressed in black, and with his spiked hair dyed snow white. Leer is similar, a guy who equates quirks with depth.
Tobey Maguire fits well in the role. With his round, sweet-eerie face he resembles Bud Cort from HAROLD AND MAUDE. But unlike Cort, Maguire is easier to warm up to; he's a messed up kid reaching for artistic credibility. Katie Holmes plays Hannah, a beautiful, talented writing student just itching to get in Grady's pants. This is a plot line I had trouble with. Douglas, in his old age, is beginning to resemble Jerry Springer, a man who has actually paid for sex on numerous documented occasions. At first I found it extremely difficult to believe that someone as beautiful as Hannah would desire Grady (maybe it's because I'm jealous, and wish Holmes was throwing herself at me, after all I may just be a lowly internet critic but at least I still have all my teeth), then I think of Douglas's real life companion, the breathtaking Catherine Zeta Jones. Seeing those two together looks a lot like a kidnapping. Suddenly my mind has shifted from the task at hand (that being reviewing this completely wonderful movie) and I'm pontificating on why the hell Jones would desire Douglas. There is a movie in there somewhere.
Grady, rather chivalrously if you ask me, resists the charms of Hannah for Sara Gaskell (a droll Frances McDormand), who is his age, but also married to another professor. Okay, maybe not so chivalrous. There is a great line in the film spoken by Douglas about Sara where he says, "She was a junkie for the printed word. Lucky for me I manufactured her drug of choice".
Robert Downy J.r plays a bisexual editor who makes his entrance with a towering transvestite on his arm. Downy has mastered the gleefully dry hyper articulate wit of many a hipster intellectual. He's arrogant but completely likeable in his utter arrogance. The actor is perfectly cast here, and remains a joyous movie presence somewhere between a typical Tom Hanksian comic leading man and edgy character actor. I wish WONDER BOYS had more of him.
Searching for a plot among the elements of WONDER BOYS would be pointless, for it meanders through its running time, but that's part of its charm. And maybe I'm a bit biased towards the film because it takes place in a haven of literary academia, a place I'm greatly fond of, and a place rarely explored in American cinema. Everyone has a sub-genre (be it war films, westerns, dance movies) that they happen to be privy to. I'm privy to films about literary types i.e. those individuals enthralled by the written word, and if you are not so inclined it may be wise to knock my above grade down about half a notch.
The direction by Curtis Hanson is more akin to a European film with its leisurely pace and situations that grow from the characters, rather than generic mapped out story points. Sometimes the dialogue is too clever, but that's a problem I wish I found with films more often. Another minor quibble is that early on the film seems a bit too introverted, like its characters, but as the story progresses it begins to open up.
For me WONDER BOYS works as subtle drama because of its insight into artistic types, and as a low-key comedy for its chuckle-worthy throwaway gags. The gags are like those in the great Robert Altman (M*A*S*H, THE LONG GOODBYE) movies, where jokes exist as asides on the fringes, like jokes in life often do. The broader comedy such as the killing of a blind dog, and incessant smoking of marijuana isn't ineffective but not nearly as memorable as the little things.
Curtis Hanson, who before his last film, LA CONFIDENTIAL, toiled about with exploitation fare like LOSIN' IT (an early Tom Cruise sex comedy) and THE HAND THE ROCKS THE CRADLE, has graduated to more meaningful films. He directs WONDER BOYS in an appropriately dour style, the comedy coming from the false gloom his characters put up. The morose crooning of Leonard Cohen would seem an odd song for the background of any party, but in a WONDER BOYS party, it fits.
The film is like a piece of literature put up on the big screen. It's the cinematic equivalent to a good read, novelistic in its approach with themes rarely found in American movies. Many will find it slight, but I found much to savor among its subtleties.
http://www.geocities.com/incongruity98 Reeling (Ron Small)
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