WONDER BOYS
US, 2000, 107 minutes, Colour.
Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Frances Mc Dormand, Robert Downey Jr, Katie Holmes, Rip Torn, Richard Knox, Jane Adams, Richard Thomas, Michael Cavadias, Philip Bosco, George Grizzard, Kelly Bishop.
Directed by Curtis Hanson.
It is quite difficult to review this film. It is not an easy entertainment yet it is designed to be an enjoyable film. Critics, so often hard to please, complain when a film runs to a formula, when it uses familiar conventions, and sometimes condemn such a film as too predictable and too undemanding. On the other hand, the public generally wants to have an enjoyable evening out and, if the film raises too many questions and involves them in too many complications, they are disappointed and say it is no good.
This may be the fate of The Wonder Boys.
It has excellent credentials. The writer is Steve Kloves who directed the hit Fabulous Baker Boys and Flesh and Bone. The director is Curtis Hanson who achieved some popularity with thrillers like The River Wild and The Hand that Rocks the Cradle and then went up several reputation rungs with his excellent police corruption drama, L.A. Confidential. This is his follow-up film. The cast is also very strong with Michael Douglas (acting his age unglamorously) as a university lecturer and Toby Maguire as his precociously talented student writer. Frances Mc Dormand is the university dean and Robert Downey Jr reminds us how talented he is as a self-serving and predatory literary editor.
Basically, this is a film about personal confusion. Each of the characters, the middle-aged crises victims as well as the young adult, is struggling with finding what is the right thing to do in their lives. Which means that audiences will vary on whom they identify with because of their particular life-experiences which they bring to watching the film.
Another limiting factor is that the action takes place over only three days (except for the rather surprisingly neat ending). We have to accept the characters as if we had just met them, follow them through the events of the few days and then speculate as to what they will do. Also limiting is the setting: a university department with rivalries and jealousies, ambitions and vanities, not your everyday world.
Michael Douglas is believable as the one-hit novelist who teaches creative writing but whose wife has walked out on him and who is emotionally entangled with the chancellor. He is desperate, trying to avoid the editor who wants his new manuscript which, instead of not being written is actually over 2000 pages long and unfinished. He tries to help the young man who can write well but who has invented an alternate life and who has to come down to earth and reality.
It may seem odd to mention here that one of the key events is the accidental shooting of the department head's pet dog and the lengths they have to go to to hide the body. This indicates how an ironic and satiric tone underlies the serious themes.
So, while The Wonder Boys may not interest many audiences and its style demands that audiences pay attention to characters and their motivations for their moral choices, it is a reminder that 'the movies' can be satisfying and much more than a predictable entertainment
1. Critical acclaim? Awards? Academic story? The academic world as a microcosm?
2. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the University, the University, halls, homes and socials, apartments? The feel of the city?
3. The musical score, the range of songs and composers, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan… – and the Oscar winning song?
4. Strong and varied cast?
5. The title, writers, publishers, their world?
6. The opening tutorial, James and his story, the students’ reactions, negative, comments, dislike and hate? Hannah trying to help? Grady his reaction, thanking Hannah, leaving James in the dark?
7. Michael Douglas as Grady, his age, experience, university lecturer, having tenure, his successful book, seven years later, the long waiting time for his next book, the three bundles of manuscript, single typed, compulsion to continue? His liking students, educating them, helping? Renting the room for Hannah? His wife leaving him that day, his reactions, his not loving her, his later visit to the home, discussions with her parents?
8. Wordfest, getting the students to do the driving, serving, the social, the Chancellor, her husband? Q as a guest, his talk, James laughing at his imagery? His presence, success, his later affirmation of Grady?
9. Grady and Sarah and the dog, the threats? Walter as head of the Department? Going into the room, his love for Sarah, telling him of her pregnancy, and thinking about abortion?
10. The social and guests?
11. James and meeting people, eccentric, his look, the mention of actors and their suicides, dates, means, giving them in alphabetical order? His love of old movies, the scenes from The Picture of Dorian Gray with George Sanders?
12. James, outside, Grady going out, the greenhouse like heaven, the bedroom, the safe combination, Marilyn Monroe’s coat that she was wearing for Joe Di Maggio? The attack of the dog, James and his gun, shooting the dog? Grady and the various times he tried to tell Sarah, unable? Carrying the dog out, in the boot of the car? Its presence in the car – and later putting it in the bed to disguise James’s absence?
13. Grady, awkward, at the social, at the speech, his collapsing? The car?
14. Crabtree, the airport, with the transvestite, Antonia? Everybody recognising her as a transvestite? As a couple, at the social? Grady driving her home, removal of the wig, his becoming Tony? Telling Grady about Crabtree’s problems?
15. Crabtree, his career as an editor, his urging Grady, Grady’s success and his retaining his job? His gay personality? Flamboyant talking, intervening? Surface self-confidence? The attraction to James? Learning about James’s book? The dog?
16. Hannah, liking Grady, the room, helping with the social, taking James to the movies, not knowing his address? Wanting to talk things over with Grady? Helping, especially the comments on the manuscript and his meeting to make choices, that he had made none, everything, the detail included?
17. In the diner, the waitress and her being pleasant? Watching the African- American man, calling him Vern, each of them creating a story and offering different suggestions, James’ eyes shut but listening and contributing? Vern and his declarations about the car, abstracting Grady and his driving, sitting on the car, the one-way street, the discovery that really was Vern’s car?
18. Helping James, staying overnight, the discussions with Crabtree? Grady wanting to help him, James making up all the details of the story, sleeping at the bus station, wanting his special spot, his bad parents, in the basement? His decision to phone the parents, finding the truth? Their coming to get him, affluent, taking James home?
19. The decision to rescue James, Grady and Crabtree, James in the basement, writing, rather lavish, Crabtree reading his lines about Grady? The background of James being absent, and abstemious, wanting control of emotions, beginning to take the drugs, the medication, the marijuana, drinking?
Taking him home, his spending the night with Crabtree? The arrival of the police?
20. The police, investigation about the stolen fur of Marilyn Monroe? Grady not telling?
21. Grady’s night call to Walter, Sarah’s arriving, her reaction? The discovery of the dog? The police questioning? The clash with Sarah?
22. Grady with the car, trying to find the right car, finding Vernon, his gun, the waitress and her pregnancy and wearing the fur? Quivering including those further? The boxes of manuscript in the car? Crabtree, his fear about the gun, driving recklessly, windows and doors, the manuscript scattered to the winds?
23. Grady’s reaction, resignation? His wishing the waitress well, her pregnancy, letting her keep the fur?
24. Grady taking stock, assessing his life, beginning again, or simply?
25. The final gathering for Wordfest, the prizes, James getting a prize because of Crabtree publishing him, Grady urging James to take a bow? The news that Walter’s study would be published, Crabtree’s manipulations and negotiations to smooth things over?
26. Grady, away from the University, writing, saying that he was happy, Sarah arriving home in the car, with the baby?
27. A quiet ending – and happiness?
